


In Shadows

by MaryWollstonecrafty



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Darkling goes to Harvard!, F/M, Is still an entitled tragic asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-03-14 21:57:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3427025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryWollstonecrafty/pseuds/MaryWollstonecrafty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Genya drags Alina to a college party. Alina meets a beautiful boy with dark circles under his eyes waiting in a courtyard.</p><p>University AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I felt like this fandom needed both more AUs (and is there an AU better than a University AU? I think not) and more Darkling smut. I hope you agree. 
> 
> (this is a one shot for now, but if you want more please let me know. I'll never pass up an opportunity to write moody garbage boys)

“Please don’t make me go,” I groan as Genya drags the eyeliner over my lids. She sighs, exasperated, and begins rifling through her absurdly large make up bag for something else to put on my face.

“You’re never going to make me look like a human” I chide her. “You’re waging an unwinnable war."

“Hush. You look beautiful,” she replies, but she’s rolling her eyes while she says it, so I doubt her sincerity.

“Where do you even meet these guys?” I sigh in annoyance.

Genya, with her perfect face, and hair, and body, got more attention than any one person should ever have to put up with.

“This one was at a coffee shop” she replies. “He seems nice! He bought me a scone! Plus, Harvard, Alina. My mother would die if I snagged a Harvard boy”.

“You can snag any boy!” I yell back at her, now ripping through my depressingly small closet. “Should I wear my cater-waiter tux? The old t-shirt stained with the applesauce, or my charcoal stained jeans? Those are literally my only options”

“You have too many jobs” She sounds disgusted. Like I chose to be poor. Like I chose to be a foster-care kid. And one not even cute enough to ever be adopted, at that. There’s only one thing I chose. To not let that define me. To work my way out of the pit of the Roxbury slums and into UMass. Sorry I have to be a waitress and a nanny and a maid to pay for it all.

“Exactly” I reply sharply. “So why would these Harvard assholes want anything to do with me anyway? Go without me.”

“Hey, hey. You know that not what I meant. You know how much I admire you. Please come, Alina. I’ll be nice, I promise. And, you know I brought you a dress.”

She sticks her arm up to the elbow into her massive purse and roots around for something I’m sure will be a tight, sparkly monstrosity.

“Ah. Found it,” She says, as she throws a ball of fabric at me, across the length of my tiny studio apartment.

I unfurl it and am shocked. This is not a Genya dress. This is an Alina dress. It is black, boat-necked and has long bell sleeves. The dress itself is short and made of something light and floaty. The cuffs, neckline, and hem are embroidered with delicate gold designs. I slip it over my head, and let out an involuntary sigh. I look beautiful. It is almost entirely due to Genya’s handiwork, but I do.

She slips into a cream-colored bandage dress that will make every single one of those Harvard nerds propose to her on the spot.

She loops her arm through mine.

“Let’s go,” she says, and I sigh, still annoyed, but resigned to my fate.

\------

We catch the T to the red-line and I can feel my heart quicken. Genya and I met in freshman year psych. I hated her, with her perfection and ease around people. But then she started sitting next to me and my hatred waned immediately. We’ve been best friends ever since.

She knows my history. She knows about my mom’s meth addiction that landed me in foster-care at 5. She knows about Mal, my highschool boyfriend, the one I thought was the one until he knocked up some girl during Basic Training. She knows that I want to be an artist, but the poor can’t afford to be romantic, so I’m studying Electrical Engineering instead. Genya knows and accepts it all.

But I never told her about Harvard. I never even told anyone I applied, so at 17, when I received my acceptance letter, I didn’t tell anyone, really. I waited two weeks to tell Mal. I thought he would be happy for me, but instead his response was “but what about me?” He convinced me that he’d take care of us. That I couldn’t afford it. That I would start to think I was better than him. So I didn’t go.

I don’t have many regrets. I love my life at UMass, and Genya, and all my many jobs.

And he was right, I really couldn’t afford it.

But there was something about those gates that always filled me with dread, and self-hatred.

\-------

Genya’s heels click on the cobblestone as we approach the Final Club, she texts the boy from the coffee shop, and he walks out to let us in.

“David!” She squeals as he walks outside

David is tall and gangly, and not at all like Genya’s usual boys.

She beams at him, and he looks as if he was staring into the sun.

He leads us inside the old house and I feel the entitlement and money in my bones. I’m not good at much, but I’m great at telling where I don’t belong, and I really didn’t belong here.

Genya and David disappear together instantly. Gee, thanks Gen. So happy I came.

I wander into the dark living room where all the furniture has been pushed against the wall. Rap is blaring and there are already couples writhing all over each other on the make shift dance floor.

I find the bar pushed up against a wall and have the bartender make me a vodka tonic. Fucking Harvard. Their college parties have a paid wait staff.  
I navigate my way through the crowded dark room, and find a pair of steamed-up French doors that lead to a small courtyard.

I step outside, closing my eyes and inhaling the fresh, cool air.

“hello”, a cold voice greets me.

I open my eyes and find myself alone with the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. He is dressed all in black, from his t-shirt, to his skinny jeans, to his beat-up black leather boots. They were the kind of clothes that looked basic, but you could tell cost more than your rent.

His black hair is perfectly disheveled and his pale skin glows in the moonlight. His slate-grey eyes stare right through me.

“Oh. Um. I’m sorry. My friend. Uh. She disappeared. I’ll go” I stammer out.

“Disappeared, huh?” he replies coolly. “Then I suppose you’d better stay,” he says as he pats the seat next to him on the stone bench pushed up against the ivy covered courtyard wall

I shuffle towards him, as he runs a perfect hand through that thick, dark hair. He has a tattoo on his forearm. Jesus Christ.

I lower myself down awkwardly on he bench as he casts a mostly bored sidelong glace at me.

“I’m Alina,” I say, because I can’t think of anything else

“Aleksander,” he replies.

“What’s your tattoo?” I blurt out. I want to die. I want the ground to swallow me. I’m not cut out for this.

He examines me for a moment before replying “Its an eclipse. I’m a physicist. I study darkness and light”

“Oh I’m studying Electrical Engineering….so I only study light” I reply lamely

“I make you nervous,” he replies. It is not a question.

“I suspect you make everyone nervous.”

We are facing each other now. I see the perfect plane of his cheekbones, his aquiline nose, and mouth so pretty it is almost obscene. Most of all, I see our matching dark circles. He looks as if he is bruised. It only serves to make him more beautiful.

“It looks like you haven’t slept since 1998,” I say. My voice is quieter now.

“I haven’t,” he says. He is smirking. “Too much to do.”

He’s looking at me quizzically. Like I’m some sort of oddity.

His stormy eyes flit down to my lips.

“Like what?” I blurt. I sound panicked. I hope he doesn’t notice, but I’m sure he does. “What is there to do?”

“The professor I work with is worthless. He hasn’t set foot in our lab in over 7 months,” I hear the sarcasm in his voice on the word our

“I supervise a team of 6 researchers. I run three specialized telescopes in Antarctica. I’m the most published undergraduate in Harvard’s history,” he continues

“Why work with the professor then, if he’s so useless?”

“I said he was worthless not useless,” he replies. His voice is icy and he’s surveying the courtyard. I begin to wonder why no one has bothered us. Perhaps they know better.

“What is his use, then?” I ask

“Funding. A lab space. A signature to forge.”

“Oh,” I reply lamely

I tilt my head up to the sky and take a deep breath. I’ve only had one drink but my veins are buzzing and I feel a little dizzy.

“Why are you here?” he asks me, suddenly “I know you don’t want to be.”

“I came with a friend,” I say

“I’m glad she disappeared,” he says.

He pushes closer to me, his thigh is pushed up against mine, and at the space where we meet, I am on fire. He reaches over, and picks up the hem resting on my leg. He thumbs over the gold embroidery with his pale, nimble fingers.

“I like the black,” he says

“Its not mine.”

“I can tell.”

He moves his hand from my leg up to my face, running a thumb along my jaw. My eyes close involuntarily, and I let out a sigh. I hate him. I hate that his power over me was so immediate. Mostly I hate that I like it. That I want it.

When the kiss I’m expecting doesn’t come, I open my eyes and find him staring at me again.

“I don’t know anything about you,” he says, deeply. I like the slight growl in his voice

“There nothing to know.”

“That’s not true. And it’s a cliché. I don’t like either.”

He sounds bored now, and annoyed. I’ve messed up, and panic seizes me. I want this perfect stranger to like me, to be impressed with me, to want me.

So I tell him everything.

I tell him that I’m an orphan. I tell him about Mal. I tell him about art and engineering, and Genya. It all comes spilling out of me like turpentine, slippery, and bitter, and quick.

When I finish, I have the courage to turn back and face him. His storm cloud eyes are narrow and curious.

“Very good,” he whispers. “That’s not nothing.”

And then he’s kissing me.

His beautiful lips are crushed up against mine, and my hands find his hair, as his arms wrap around my waist. I feel him everywhere.

He moans as his lips travel down my neck to my collarbone, which he bites. I throw my head back and close my eyes. I’ve known him for 15 minutes and I am his.

He lip press against mine again, working slowly. His kiss is surprisingly sweet. He pulls back, and looks into my face. I’m shocked by the vulnerability I see there.

“Will you come home with me, Alina?” he asks, quietly, like I could possibly say no.

“Yes,” I reply simply, refusing to give into the small part of my head insisting I tell him I’m not that kind of girl, or that I’m still not over Mal, or that Genya needs me. The only thing I give in to is him.

He stands and wraps his hand around my own, pulling me back inside through the writhing, sweaty party. I see Genya smiling and dancing with David in the middle of the dance floor. She is radiant and he is already in love with her, I can see it from here.

\--------

Aleksander pulls me through the front door and out onto the bustling street.

We don’t talk as he pulls me through winding cobblestoned streets full of drunk students. We don’t talk as we arrive at a beautiful old building, its white tower standing tall over the Charles River. We don’t talk as he swipes his student ID against a censor, unlocking the heavy ancient door.

He leads me up to the fourth floor, and I have to control my breathing so he doesn’t know the stairs made me winded. I’ve never been particularly athletic.

His room is swathed in dark velvets. A leather winged back chair stands by the fireplace, and everywhere, there are books.

He leads me through a second door into a tiny bedroom, with a single cold mercury glass window.

We fall onto his dorm-issue twin bed, and suddenly, he is everywhere.

His hands fall to the hem of my dress for the second time tonight, swiftly pulling it over my head. He throws it across the room, and runs his hands up and down my bare arms. He fists the hair at the back of my neck, pulling my head back so he can bite my ears, my shoulder, my collarbones.

I make a noise somewhere between a scream and a moan as he unclasps my bra and runs his nails down my back. He pulls off my black underwear next, leaving me in nothing but Genya’s borrowed heels. I kick them off, and they hit the wall with a thud.

“You still have all your clothes on,” I whisper “that’s not fair.”

“Oh Alina, who said this was going to be fair?” He smirks.

I crush my lips against his once more, biting, and pulling the hem of his perfect black tshirt over his head.

I kiss down his beautiful bare chest, stopping at the waistband of his pants

He looks down at me, an imperceptible look on his face, and whispers “I want you.”

I unbutton his pants for him, and he kicks off his boots, and then pulls them off.

I kiss his torso again, but this time I don’t stop. I pull off his black boxers and take him, fully, into my mouth, he gasps quickly then moans. “Jesus. Yes. Alina.”

I haven’t had much experience, but I’ve had enough to know that guys don’t expect this from a little thing like me. I’m not a saint though, and I love that power dynamic. I love feeling Aleksander coming apart. I love the moans I rip from him as I move up and down his perfect cock. I love how broken he sounds when he begs me for it.

“Stop, god, Alina,” he gasps after a minute. “I don’t want to come like this.”

I stop and he grabs me, flipping me onto my back. He kisses me, rough, and I know my lips and going to be bruised tomorrow. He slips a finger inside of me and it is my turn to gasp.

“More,” I manage to get out.

“Say please,” he commands.

“Please, please,” I moan.

He enters another long, beautiful finger inside of me and works them in and out tortuously, kissing and biting and my neck all the while.

He thumbs at my clit, in small circles, deliberate and delicate and so good I can’t breathe.

I feel my heart pounding, as my limbs become heavy; I am entirely under his power.

The only that matters to me anymore is his perfect mouth and delicious fingers and that he doesn’t stop.

“You’re so wet for me Alina,” he growls into my ear, teeth grazing my earlobe.

“I know,” I gasp. I can feel it, my body has never reacted this way for anyone before.

“Do you want me?” he asks.

“Yes.”

And then, with one stroke, he’s inside of me, working in and out, first slowly, then quicker.

“God. Fuck,” I yell.

He pulls my hair and thrusts harder into me, stretching me to fit all of him.

He fucks me hard and sweet. He touches me everywhere as he pushes into me. I take all of him, again and again. It feels so good I might burst with the sensation of it all.

“Come for me, Alina,” he whispers deliciously into my ear, nails raking down my back.

And because I am powerless to disobey, I come, shuddering around him, screaming and moaning, almost blind with the force of it.

“Say my name” he commands, and I scream “Aleksander” into the inky black darkness of his room.

I feel him come inside me, sticky and wet, then he collapses on top of me, breathing hard.

After a moment he rolls over, and finally speaks.

“You should go,” he says.

“I should,” I reply, because there’s nothing else to say.

I climb the four floors down alone, breathless, but not because of the stairs.

I let the night wrap its darkness around me and I find my way home and into my own cold bed, wondering what the hell just happened to me.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask and you shall receive! A few lovely people asked for more of this AU and I was only too happy to oblige. Writing this has been interesting, because they're both college students the power dynamic that usually makes their relationship so interesting doesn't exist. I've tried to recreate it in other ways (wealth/status, etc.) so I hope it still reads true to character. 
> 
> I have a few ideas of where this is going to go (Baghra, Mal and Zoya are all going to show up soon) but please comment and let me know what you think (they are my life's blood and I love all of you)
> 
> Also is this whole chapter an elaborate set up for them to have sex in a closet? Maybe. Sorry I'm not sorry.

\----------------------

A week after “the incident” (as I exclusively refer to it in my head, refusing to think about it beyond that) my phone rings. I don’t recognize the number but it is local, and I’m constantly receiving babysitting referrals, so I pick up.

“Hello, this is Alina” I answer.

“Alina” a bemused voice on the other end responds. He sings my name like a song. Adrenaline shoots through my veins. I wish I had control of my arms to hang up, but suddenly my whole body is cement (also I’m wildly curious to see where this goes, a small part of my brain concedes)

“Aleksander” I respond “I did not expect to hear from you again”

“Probably a reasonable expectation after what happened…I’m sorry” he adds softly. I almost believe him.

“What do you want?”

“I would like to see you again.”

“You what?”

“I would like you see you again Alina. I’m receiving an award. There is a ceremony followed by a formal dinner, I’ve even heard rumors of dancing. I would like you to be my date”

“Why?” I respond, incredulous

“Why does anyone ask anyone else out on a date?” he laughs “Because I think you’re interesting and I would like to get to know you better”

I’m shocked. I didn’t expect anything so genuine. I wish I had time to think, really think about the consequences of saying yes, but the silence on the other end of the phone is deafening.

“Sure. Fine” I concede. I’ll say yes, but I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of being excited about it.

“Text me the details, I have to get back to work” I say

“I will. I look forward to seeing you again, Alina” he says coolly, then the line goes silent with a click.

I slowly lower my phone to my side, my hand still shaking slightly, I take a deep breath and close my eyes trying to steady by breathing, and wrap my head around the fact that I just agreed to go on a date with the Harvard asshole who fucked me then sent me home in the cold. The Harvard asshole with whom I’d felt a connection unlike anything I’d ever felt.

It isn’t until I’m home in bed that night that I realize I never gave him my number.

\----------------------------------

He texts me the next day while I’m in class. It’s a simple “ Saturday. Ceremony starts at 7. I’ll pick you up at 6:30. Text me your address”

I text him my address and I don’t get a response. Not that I was expecting one. Aleksander doesn’t seem like the texting type. He doesn’t really seem like the date type either though, so I’m cautious to make any more assumptions about him.

I return home after a hellish day of classes and a nanny shift. I’m covered in squash and marker and the general scent of baby tears and sweat. Babies are astonishingly sweaty. I’m looking forward to eating all the leftovers in my fridge and being sound asleep by 9:30.

I approach my door and am shocked to find a gleaming white box tied with a black ribbon and labeled simply with my name. “Alina” is scrawled across corner is perfect looping handwriting. There’s no address. Someone dropped this off personally. The thought is simultaneously flattering and unsettling.

I pick it up and throw it on my bed, along side my backpack and a pile of laundry that will likely never be folded. I untie the ribbon, lift off the lid and unfurl a dress. Well not a dress, a gown, really. It is pitch black, and made of raw silk. I can’t even begin to imagine how much it cost. It is sleeveless, low cut into a v-neck, and undeniably slinky. But it is also classic and beautiful. That jerk has good taste.

Under the dress there’s a simple gold necklace and a pair of black heels. The clothes are beautiful, but this is all getting very “Pretty Woman” and it’s making me nervous. I’m no 90s Julia Roberts, and I certainly don’t want a Richard Gere.

I text Genya a picture of the dress with the caption “help”.

\-------------------

She comes over immediately with Thai takeout and a look on her face that lets me know I’m in trouble for not telling her everything immediately. A look on her face that also lets me know she already knows too much.

She dumps the bag of food on my rickety kitchen table, raises an eyebrow, and looks me square in the eye. I busy myself gathering plates and forks and attempting to hide the growing shame creeping across my face.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME.” Each word is punctuated. I’m in trouble.

“I didn’t know what to say!” I respond, defensive

“The first guy since Mal! He likes you Alina, he asked David for your number! David says he never does that. NOT EVER ALINA!”

“Ughhhhh what do I do?” I sink down in my chair. As distraught as one person can be with a mouth full of curry

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DIDN’T TELL ME” Genya yells, not yet finished admonishing me.

“I can’t believe you gave him my number, you traitor!”

“Of course I gave him your number you idiot! He’s gorgeous. But more importantly, Alina, HE ISN'T MAL”

“I know he isn’t Mal” I say quietly

“No pity parties” Genya scolds me “Now tell me everything”

“What, David didn’t already tell you?

“No. All Aleks told him is that he met a girl. A girl who came to the party with me, and that he needed her number. So spill. Now”

“It’s your fault, really” I say “If you hadn’t run off with David I wouldn’t have been forced out into the courtyard to find my own entertainment”

“Oh please. You owe me” She responds, smile playing on her lips, at the thought of she and David that night

“I met him outside. We talked for a bit. And then he took me home with him.”

“ALINA YOU DIDN’T. WHO ARE YOU” The look on her face is almost worth the humiliation of the whole ordeal

“Did you have sex with him??” She asks

“Yes.” I groan, closing my eyes and burying my head in my hands

“How was it?” She asks, urgently

“Good. Really fucking good…until he kicked me out immediately after”

“Jesus what a jerk” She sounds genuinely sorry or me, so at least there’s that.

“And now he wants me to go to this thing with him. I said yes because I couldn’t think of what else to say and I don’t know what to do”

“Here’s what you’re going to do” Genya replies, “You’re going to put on that beautiful dress. I’m going to make you the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen, and then you’re going to break his heart.”

 -------------------------------

 

Genya comes over at three the next day to get me ready, which I think is ridiculous, but she insists in necessary, which just further offends me.

I turn on old episodes of America’s Next Top Model and try my best to zone out while she pokes and prods at all of me.

“Is this going to turn out like a disaster from the make over episodes?” I ask her, “am I going to turn around and have a bleach blonde pixie cut?” I laugh.

“Oh honey you couldn’t pull it off” She responds, mumbling, her mouth balancing no less than 5 bobby pins.

After hours and more products than I could possibly count, she steps back, arches a perfect brow, and finally says “He is going to die when he sees you. Go get dressed”

I tenderly carry the dress to my tiny bathroom and get a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Genya has truly outdone her self. My skin is porcelain. My eyes are sultry, surrounded by a perfect smoky eye. My lips and cheeks are rosebud pink, and all the plucking she did at my brows was clearly worth it. My hair is shining, pulling up into a low elaborate bun with tendrils framing my face and spilling down my neck. She is a magician. She is an artist.

I exit the bathroom and tell her so.

Her reply is a simple “Oh Honey, I know” but I can tell she is touched.

I slip on my heels and the gold necklace, sit precariously on the edge of my bed, and wait for him to text me, telling me he has arrived. I am so nervous I might throw up. That would make a killer second impression.

At exactly 6:30 I get a text that simply says “here.”

I hug Genya quickly goodbye and she whispers in my ear “You’re going to kill him”

\-------------------------------------

I walk out the front door of my building to find an idling black sports car much too nice for this neighborhood. Aleksander steps out of the car, in a perfectly tailored tux, hair still thick and disheveled and begging for hands to be put through it. He’s even more handsome in the light of day. I don’t know how it’s possible.

He walks around the car, grey eyes looking me over, and opens up my door.

“You look beautiful Alina. I’m glad you decided to come tonight” he says, and to my surprise, it sounds like he means it.

We zip through the streets of Boston far too fast for my comfort. His driving is confident, bordering on reckless.

I find myself wondering if he has ever been less than sure of himself in anything.

We make it to Cambridge at exactly 7pm. He leads me through cobble-stoned streets (alarmingly difficult in heels, but I manage without embarrassing myself) and up to a massive columned building.

He holds my hand as he leads me up the stairs, through swathes of other formally dressed rich people, and into a ballroom, adorned with chandelier after chandelier, and an endless stretch of tables covered in white roses and candles. There’s a swing band playing in the corner, and I have never felt more out of place.

He must notice my wide-eyed wonder, because he gives my hand a squeeze and leans over to whisper in my ear “There’s no one I’d rather be here with, than you”

My heart gives an abbreviated little thump and I can feel the blood rush to my cheeks.

We find our table, up near the front of the room by the stage and podium. Our places are marked by beautiful hand-caligraphied place cards that read “Alina Morozova” and “Aleksander Morozova”

“Morozova?” I lean over and whisper to him

“I didn’t know your last name” he replies

“You could have just asked Genya when you asked for my number.”

“I like this more” he says, turning to make eye contact with me, and imperceptible look on his face.

“It’s Starkov” I say, meeting his gaze

“Starkov” he mutters, like he’s trying it on.

He unbuttons his tux jacket, and says, mostly to himself, I think “I still like this more"

\---------------------------

The ceremony is long and boring. There is only so long you can see excellence honored before you start to feel really shitty about yourself.

I’m three glasses of wine in when they call Aleksander to the stage with a long introduction I only halfway listen to. He’s amazing, is what the whole thing boils down to. He’s amazing and I don’t know what he could possibly want with me.

He rises to approach the podium, and as he does so, drags his hand, which had been resting on my knee, all the way up my thigh. I feel his fingers slightly grab at the silk pushed up around my hip, as if he’s reluctant to let go, and for a moment I can’t breathe.

His speech is gracious and charming. He thanks the professor he works for with a smile that doesn’t touch his eyes, and I make a mental note that he’s a good liar. He says beautiful things about the practice of science and the pursuit of knowledge. They hand him a crystal trophy and the entire room rises to their feet to applaud him.

He walks off the stage and joins me back at the table

“You’re good” I lean over to whisper to him

“Oh, I know” he whispers back. His teeth graze my ear lobe and a shiver goes up my spine.

Dinner is forgettable and I barely eat any of it. I have one more glass of wine and pick halfheartedly at a roll.

Plates are cleared, the band starts back up again, and people filter to the floor for dancing.

Aleksander grabs my hand under the table, and meets my eye. He looks…hungry

He leads me through the room, and for a moment of horror I think he is going to make me dance with him, but he keeps on walking past dance floor, past the swathes of people who gather to congratulate him, and straight out the ballroom doors.

He leads me down a darkened hallway; the only sound the click of my heels on the marble floor.

He winds me around the labyrinth of a building before coming to a stop at a perfectly unremarkable door with an old brass doorknob.

He gives it a twist with his perfect hand, and leads me into a dark room.

No not a room. A closet. He’s taken me to a supply closet.

Before I can say anything his lips are crushed against mine, his mouth moving, coaxing mine open. He takes me bottom lip between his teeth and bites me. He trails his mouth down my neck. Kissing the juncture of my shoulder, my collarbone, then trailing back up.

His lips are on my ear as he growls “fuck you. Fuck you for showing up tonight looking like that, and making me keep my hands to myself all night. Fuck I couldn’t wait any longer.”

He crushes his lips to mine once more, and this time I don’t wait to respond. I kiss him back with reckless abandon, darting my tongue inside his mouth. Fisting at the hair at the back of his head. Relishing the moans I’m tearing out of him.

He moves his hand from my waist to my thigh. Grabbing at my dress until it is hiked up enough to feel his hand on my bare inner thigh. He rakes his nails across it, and I feel him swiftly pull my underwear to the side and enter me with two fingers.

“fuck, I knew you’d be this wet for me” he whispers deliciously in my ear.

He moves his fingers tortuously in and out. I use the hand that isn’t bracing me on a shelf to begin undoing his bow tie and shirt buttons.

Before I can make much progress, he pulls out his fingers. I give a disappointed little groan. Somehow, I don’t feel whole anymore unless he’s touching me.

He’s suddenly on his knees in front of me, he grasps the hem of my dress with both hands, and with a tug rips it up the middle to my thighs.

I give a startled little shriek, and he laughs a perfect small laugh and says “shhhh”

He runs both hands up the sides of my thighs, grabbing my underwear and pulling it off.

He puts his mouth on me, and the force of the sensation causes me to stumble back, hitting the shelves. He laughs again, and this time I’m the one who tells him to shut up.

I brace myself on the shelves again, and he begins kissing my inner thighs, licking slightly as he moves towards my clit.

He licks around it slowly, tortuously, before finally putting his mouth where I have been craving it. He works in large, lazy circles at first, drawing a string of curses out of me.

He starts to move faster, in smaller circles, and my legs begin to shake. He steadies me with a large hand grasping my calf.

His tongue is perfect. He is perfect. I begin to feel an orgasm building in the pit of my stomach, my head is arched back against the shelves, and I am making no attempts to be quiet. I couldn’t if I tried. The whole party can probably hear me moaning, and I couldn’t care less.

He licks at me, faster, harder, sensing my urgency. He trails a hand up my thigh and enters me again, with two fingers. He pumps them twice. I can’t take it anymore. I come, shattering around him, waves of pleasure knocking my knees out from under me, I cry out, and I think I hear him laugh.

He rises to his feet, I’m trying to catch my breath, as he leans down to kiss me gently, pulling back to whisper against my lips “that was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen”

He undoes his perfectly pressed tuxedo pants, pulling everything down, so I can see that his beautiful cock is already rock hard.

“I’m going to make you come again,” he says, his eyes dark.

He grabs me by the waist, hiking my dress up around me, lifting me up. I wrap my legs around him, and he leans me up against the shelves for balance.

He enters me, and I can feel how wet I am for him. How wet he made me.

He begins fucking me hard and fast up against the wall. He mutters obscene things in my ear, fingers threading their way through my hair.

“so tight” he says with one thrust “so wet” with the next

and then just “mine, mine, mine” again and again, until I feel another orgasm building. My nerves are raw as I come around him again, shuddering and biting his shoulder with the force of it.

“Aleksander, please” I whisper. I don’t even know what I’m begging for.

“Alina” he whispers back and comes inside of me, shaking and spent.

He draws out of me slowly, and lowers me to the floor.

He looks at the state of me. My ruined hair, flushed face, and ripped dress.

“I’m sorry about your dress” he says.

“No you’re not”

“You’re right” he laughs. “Not even a little”

He laces his long fingers through mine and leads me by the hand out of the closet. I can hear that the party is still in full swing down the hall.

I pray that we don’t run into anyone, there’s no way to hide the fact that we just fucked.

For that same reason, a small part of me prays that we do. That people see us together and know that I am his.

\-------------

He leads me to the car, and drives with the same reckless confidence as before. He pulls up to my building, and asks, voice soft, “Can I come up?”

I don’t know how to answer at first. I don’t want him to go, but I don’t know what this means. I don’t know if he is only interested in me because I’m a good lay. I don’t know if he wants to get to know me as a person. I don’t recognize my own voice as I say a simple “yes"

I lead him through my building. Across stained carpet and thin doors containing couples arguing and glasses shattering. Somewhere a dog barks. I am usually able to ignore the abject poverty in which I live, but I am seeing it all through his eyes, and suddenly I am embarrassed an upset. The worlds we inhabit are as different as night and day. He belongs in the sun, his life gleaming and shiny. I belong here, in shadows and amongst broken things.

I pull my key out to unlock my deadbolt and he captures my wrist with his hand, running a pale finger over my pulse, before lowering his lips to mine for a quick kiss. I think he’s trying to tell me that everything is okay. Perhaps I am being too optimistic.

I flick the lights on in my tiny studio and blurt out “It’s not much, but its mine.”

He wraps his long arms around my waist, and responds, simply “I want to give you everything”

I slip out of my ruined dress right in front of him, making no show of false modesty. He’s seen me naked too many times for me to get shy now. I put on a pair of old sweat pants and a loose black tank top while he busies himself making us glasses of tea in my small kitchen. It is odd to see him moving about so naturally in my home. Simultaneously out of place, and looking like he’s never belonged anywhere more.

We sip our tea as he tells me more about his research and asks gentle questions about my classes.

He follows me to bed, slipping out of his tux, wearing nothing but dark briefs. He tangles his bare legs against mine; pressing kisses to the top of my head, my forehead, my jaw.

“Thank you for letting me stay” he whispers.

“Thank you for staying” I respond.

With his hands buried in my hair, our bodies entwined, the gentle steady thump of his heart under my head, I know that Genya was wrong. I don’t want to break his heart.

As I descend into a fog of slate-grey colored dreams, I think I hear him say “I have been waiting a long time for you Alina”

The last thought I have before being pulled under is simple:

 

We are going to destroy each other.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy that y'all seem to be enjoying this fic! I'm in my final semester of school, so things are a little crazy, but I will do my best to keep updating regularly (once a week-ish is what I'm aiming for). Thank you for reading and let me know what you think! (Oh and ps. and Adams House is like a Dorm. They live in "houses" at Harvard like it's Hogwarts. She's not waiting outside of some random guy's house. I realized that might require clarification)

I wake the next day, sheets tangled between my legs, the cold light of morning pushing through my thin curtains. The apartment is eerily still, and I know without having to look over my shoulder that I am alone. It can’t be later than 8am. I suspect he left soon after I fell asleep. The thought makes me angry and embarrassed. Which only serves to make me more angry and embarrassed for expecting anything different.

Aleksander is not the kind of boy who stays the night. He is not going to burst through the door with coffee and croissants, striding over to the bed to give me a kiss on the nose and a delighted “oh you’re up!”. This is not a Sandra Bullock movie.

The thought leaves a hollow ache in my chest. I’m used to being alone, but I am not used to this feeling. Aleksander Morozova makes me feel a special kind of loneliness. I don’t know why I keep letting this boy in through the cracks in my walls only to have him remind me of why I built them in the first place.

Self pity isn’t productive, I remind myself. If anyone should have learned that by now it is me. I glance at my phone and confirm the time. 7:37am. I can probably squeeze in two more hours of sleep before holing up in the library for the rest of the weekend in preparation for midterms. Sleep is precious. Boys are not. I roll over and lose myself, once more, in an uneasy sleep haunted by images of long fingers, dark hair, and grey eyes.

I meet Genya in the library that afternoon. She’s brought all our favorite study snacks and I am reminded, as I am one million times a day, that I am so lucky she is my best friend. She throws a gummi worm at me as I sit down. 

“How was last night?” she exclaims, eyes bright and eager.

“I don’t even know, man.” I sigh, emotionally hung over from the whole experience. “It was kind of perfect? He’s beautiful. Like really beautiful. And there are times when he looks at me and I think he really likes me, but then it is so hard to tell with him. He asked to come up to my apartment, and I thought he was going to stay the night, but when I woke up this morning he was gone.” I say.

“I think he’s kind of a dick” I add with a laugh. 

“Hmmm” she replies. Genya is a psych major and I can see the wheels turning in her head. There’s nothing she loves more than analyzing people and gossip. 

“Yes, probably a dick” she laughs after a moment “But there’s only one way to find out. We have to go on a double date. You, me, David, Aleks” 

“Ha! Nice try. You're hilarious” I laugh. I don’t think Aleksander is the meet my friend at Chilis type. “Now give me those goldfish. I have so much to do.”

I lose myself in equations and papers and diagrams for the rest of the afternoon, pointedly not thinking of a certain boy and the way his eyes look when he looks at me.

\----------------------

It isn’t until I’m in bed that I receive a call from Aleksander. A call. Who is he my grandmother? Well…not my grandmother, I don’t have one of those…but someone’s grandmother. 

I think about just letting it go to voicemail, but I find I just don’t have the self-control. 

I pick up the call and am silent for a moment before finally conceding a cold “hello.” 

“Alina, it is good to hear your voice” he replies his tone light.

“That’s what you have to say to me?” I reply coldly

“I don’t know what you mean?” he replies

“Where were you this morning? You made me feel like an idiot!” I wish that I could be cool and collected like he always seems to be, but I cannot control my hurt.

“I had things to do. I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings. I stayed for a few hours and then I had to leave. What did you think Alina? That I was going to stay and watch you sleep? That we would make breakfast together in the morning? Surely you’re not so naïve”

“I don’t know what I thought” I mumble. He’s made me embarrassed. I am not so naïve.

“I’m genuinely sorry I hurt your feelings Alina. Let me make it up to you. Can you come to campus for lunch tomorrow?”

“You’re going to make it up to me by making me go all the way over to Cambridge?”

“It will be a very good lunch”

“Ugh fine” I reply. I want to see him, definitely, but avoiding studying is also appealing.

“Wonderful, meet me outside Adams House at 1” 

“Fine” I reply 

“Fine” He replies back, a laugh in his voice.

The line goes silent with a click.

 --------------------------

I make my way over to Cambridge the next day. I hate being on this campus. I hate all the girls in their Tory Burch boots and Prada bags. I hate that no one at this school seems capable of putting together an outfit in which there is not at least one Harvard logo emblazed on their body. I hate that they were almost my peers. That I could have been one of them. A small part of me hates that I’m not. 

I make it to Adams House at 12:43. The curse of the chronically early. I lean up against the wall and pull out my phone in an attempt to look busy as students hurry past me. After two email refreshes and a very boring facebook check, I hear someone’s footsteps slowing, approaching me. 

I lift my eyes from my phone, expecting to see Aleksander, but am instead greeted by a face that is eerily familiar. He’s shorter than Aleksander by at least six inches. His wavy sandy blonde hair is pushed back out of his eyes and in badly need of a trim. He’s wearing a crisp white button down, navy blue pressed slacks, and boat shoes made of warm tan leather. His full lips are playing at a smile and his nose looks as if it has been broken at least once. His blue eyes are narrowed, looking at me, through thick tangled lashes. 

How do I know him, how do I know him? My brain whirs, mentally searching through catalogues of people. High school? Nope. Summers at the Y? No. Way too rich for that. Work? Nope. 

Then it hits me like slap to the face.

He’s Nikolai Lantsov. Second son of President Lantsov. Like, President of the United States Lantsov. 

Fuck.

Why is he coming towards me?

I flit my eyes back down to my phone. Maybe he’s not coming towards me, maybe I’m wrong.

I refuse to look up. 

The footsteps stop.

I look down from the phone screen to the ground. His expensive shoes are a foot from mine.

I look up.

“Hello” He greets me, confidently. Maybe he thinks I’m someone else? 

“Um. Hello?” I reply. 

“You look like you’re badly in need of assistance” his voice is lilting. I imagine he has the ability to charm a pile of rocks 

“I’m not”’ I reply, but I’m not convincing. 

“Hm let me guess” he continues, looking me over, ignoring my previous statement completely “Got lost on a high school tour? Skipping Ancient Aramaic 101? Or are you just waiting outside the best house on campus hoping to catch the attention of a charming young student, make him yours, and live the rest of your days in comfort as a political trophy wife?” 

Is he serious? He can’t be serious. 

“None of those things” I reply. “I’m waiting for someone. I’m an adult, so no high school tours for me. I’m not skipping class, and I’m afraid I’d make a pretty garbage trophy wife. Sorry to disappoint” I say. 

“Oh love, I’m not disappointed” He replies. 

“I’m Nikolai” he juts out a hand for me to shake.

I take it cautiously. It’s warm and calloused. 

“Alina” I reply 

“Alina, who, pray tell, would leave you waiting on a beautiful day like today?” 

“No one. I’m early”

“No you’re not. You’re precisely on time. Come on, let’s go get coffee” his eye brows are raised, his mouth curled into a half smile. 

“I can’t. Like I said, I’m waiting for someone.” 

“Pity I’m here and he’s not” he replies. He’s not giving up.

“I-“ I open my mouth to reply, only to see Aleksander approaching quickly, his long legs taking lengthy strides towards us. His mouth is pressed into a tight line. Ray bans are perched atop his perfect nose, so I can’t see what his eyes look like, but I have a pretty good guess. He rakes a hand through his thick hair, and flexes the hand at his side. 

The sight of him knocks the wind out of me, and I am under his power once more. 

“Alina!” he greets me, he sounds happy to see me, but there’s an edge to his voice. 

“Aleksander.” I reply, attempting to be cool in return. My old flats smack against the cobblestones, still wet from this morning’s rain, and feel shabby and awkward next to him. 

He kisses me full on the mouth before turning to Nikolai who is still standing besides me. 

“Lantsov” he greets him coldly. 

“Morozova” Nikolai responds, saying the name slowly, as if processing this is whom I was waiting for.

“Come on Alina, let’s go” Aleksander grabs me by the hand and begins to lead me away, a bit too forcefully.

“Goodbye, Alina. Until Next time!” Nikolai calls after me.

I glace over my shoulder to meet his eyes, and he gives me a wink. 

Good god. 

“Why were you talking to him” Aleksander asks, voice sharp. 

“I wasn’t, really. I was waiting for you and he came up and started talking to me. It was bizarre, but it wasn’t anything”

He’s silent for a moment, and I can see the wheels turning in his head. 

“Okay” he finally concedes.

I get the sense he’s not totally satisfied and I almost say sorry before remembering I have nothing to be sorry for. I refuse to apologize for being accosted by some boy with a poor definition of personal space.

He takes me to a French café for lunch. I get the sense that he’s sorry for the way he acted around Nikolai, so he is particularly attentive and sweet. He even tries to pull out my chair for me, which I tell him is over kill. 

He asks me more about my childhood over crepes and lattes. It is kind of a sob story so I keep it light. Foster care home to foster care home. It all turns into a blur after a while.

I try to deflect by asking him about his, but he’s vague as well. The only thing I get out of him is that he is an only child as well, and that he was raised by a single mother. 

I’m beginning to understand we both have our secrets. 

I’m also beginning to think it is what makes us good together. He understands me, I think. Or at least he is beginning to. 

\-------- 

After lunch he offers to walk me to the T and I accept, still slightly in awe that he wants to spend anytime with me at all.

We take a short cut across Harvard yard, stepping over picnic blankets, weaving around tourists and students hurrying to class. The sun is streaming through the leaves of the massive oak trees that line the zig-zagging paths, and Aleksander envelopes my small hand in his much larger one. 

I’m watching a particularly fat squirrel scurry up a tree when I notice a small, hunched woman barreling her way towards us. 

She’s probably in her mid sixties, her long gray hair blowing in a fury behind her. She’s walking with a strange lilting gait with the help of a cane. Her spine is bent at an angle, and I wonder if she has a particularly severe case of scoliosis. 

Her face is screwed up into a grimace, her feet hurling her small frame as fast as they can carry her towards us.

 Aleksander notices her a few seconds after I do. He freezes in his tracks and drops my hand so quickly you’d think it was heated like a hot stove. 

He knows this woman. They know each other. 

“Aleksander!” she yells across the courtyard, still a few dozen feet away, but getting closer by the second.

He doesn’t respond. He just stares back in wide-eyed terror. 

She hurls herself forward on tiny feet for a few moments more, until she is standing right in front of us, fuming. 

“I know for a fact you have a class right now” she scolds him.

“And I know that Dr. Bokarov is not going to take kindly to this kind of disrespect” she continues, venom in her voice. 

“It is not disrespect. I had another engagement” he responds, his voice void of any inflection.

“Another engagement, eh?” she replies, her tone taunting. “Who is this” she gestures to me with a disinterested wave of her wrinkled hand.

“This is Alina Starkov” he says “Alina Starkov, this is my mother. Professor Baghara Morozova. And we really must be going, Professor. Alina has a train to catch” 

She ignores him and darts her eyes to me “Alina Starkov? I know that name.” 

“No you don’t.” Aleksander replies sharply. 

I’m standing red faced and embarrassed beside him, my eyes firmly fixed on the ground. 

“How do I know that name?” she looks at me 

“You must have me confused with someone else, m’am. I’m sorry.” I reply, eyes still fixed on her shoes. 

“We have to go, Professor” Aleksander says once more “Alina has a train to catch” 

He beings to walk away, his eyes darting, telling me to follow, but he does not grab my hand. 

I finally make eye contact with Dr. Morozova. Her small black eyes bore into mine, and she gives an almost imperceptible shake of her head like a disappointed mother.

\--------------- 

I follow Aleksander to the T stop at Harvard Square. He does not speak at we walk. I want to ask him so many questions, but I know he doesn’t want me to say anything. So I don’t. 

We make our way to the entrance, when he finally stops, raking a hand through his shiny black hair and letting out a long sigh. 

“She has to ruin everything” he finally says 

“What are you talking about? She didn’t ruin anything.” 

“Oh but she will try” 

“She won’t succeed” I respond, though I’m not so certain. I don’t know what she is capable of, but at first glance I would guess a great deal. 

He lowers his head to mine and meets my lips for a long kiss, his long arms snaking around my lower back and pulling me close to him.

“I’ll see you soon.” He says. “Thank you for coming. I’m so incredibly glad you came to that stupid party.”

“Me too” I say

\------------------ 

I barely make my train, barely make it to work on time, a waitressing shift at a small sandwich shop around the corner from my apartment.

I mess up three separate orders, my brain buzzing with thoughts of the Morozova family, necessary equations for my midterms three days from now, and the crooked smile of a certain first son of the United States. 

It’s a slow night and eventually the owner gets so tired of dealing with me, he just sends me home early. 

I’m fishing my keys out of my bag, walking through the dark dingy hallway of my building when something stops me in my tracks.

There’s something sitting at my door. Wait, no, there is _someone_ sitting at my door. 

The figure is sitting, hunched over, head resting on their knees. 

At the sound of my slowing foot steps they look up, then slowly rise to their feet.

Adrenaline washes over me. 

“Alina?” The figure finally says in a small broken voice

 

“Mal?”

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is a very Nikolai heavy chapter, so here's to hoping you all love him as much as I do. The Darkling will be back next chapter though, I promise! I love the idea of Nikolai and the Darkling being direct romantic rivals, which isn't something we saw a lot of in the book. 
> 
> (also sorry if you like Mal. I made him a real dick.)
> 
> Thanks for reading, as always! I want to bake all of you cookies.

I remember the day Mal moved next door. I was 12 years old and living with my fourth and final foster family, they kept me until I was 18 and then I never heard from them again. Once the government checks stopped coming, they stopped caring. 

I remember the first time I saw him. He was 13 and tall, all legs and floppy hair and hands he hadn’t quite grown into yet. 

I was small and pale, withered like a plant left too long in a dark room. My dark hair hung in curtains around my sharp face and my knee caps knocked together when I walked. No one is cute at 12, but I was particularly pathetic. 

It felt like something magic had brought him into my life, to Keramzin Street in a bad part of Roxbury. He lit up my world. He shone like a beam of light through the never-ending darkness. 

I sat on the stoop of the small row house, mesmerized by the sight of him. He caught me staring and good naturedly waved in my direction, I froze, horrified that he had seen me looking at him. By the time I raised my own small hand to wave back, he had already turned away from me, busying himself unpacking the uhaul parked on the street. 

By the time he walked into my 7th grade algebra class the next day, I was already madly in love with him.

We spent years fliting around each other as friends, my heart always painfully his. I made pining my art form. He made obliviousness his. Until one day I was 17, and sitting on the stoop sketching in an old book when he came over and sat down next to me. He sat too close, his leg grazing mine and leaned over to look at my drawing. It was an anatomical study. I was drawing a pair of slightly too large hands. Mal’s hands. I shut the book tightly with a snap, but I wasn’t quick enough. He had seen it all. He looked at me, eyes quizzical, the truth slowly dawning on him. My face burned red, I looked down at the ground, ready to rise to my feet and make a run for it, when he grabbed my chin with one hand, tilted my face up to his, and kissed me. 

I was certain my heart was going to burst. I kissed him back, tears in my eyes. “I see you now” he whispered against my mouth. It was a moment I wanted to live in forever.

For years, he was my refuge, he was my partner, he was my best friend. He was my family. 

Until 7 months ago, two days from our 3rd anniversary, when he came home one night and told me he’d made a mistake. He’d made a mistake, and she was pregnant. 

I ran to Genya’s. I asked her pick up my things from the apartment Mal and I shared. I refused to take his calls, and I never looked back. 

I had once thought there was nothing he could do to stop me from loving him. I was correct in that regard. I did not, however, anticipate there would ever be a time when I did not wish to any longer. I wear my love for Malyen Oretsev like chains, like a festering wound, like pebble in my shoe. Always present, always painful, always ignored.

\------------

“What are you doing here?” I say to him at last 

I shuffle my feet across the stained carpet of the long hallway, approaching him slowly like a wounded animal. 

“I don’t know-I, I needed…” he lets out a long sigh, and I take in the sight of him. His eyes are rimmed in red, face scruffy, shirt hanging slightly too large off his broad shoulders. He is a mess. 

“I needed to see you” he finishes in a horrible, broken voice.

I think about saying nothing, about going inside and locking the door, I really do. But the small part of me that loves him still is stirring at the sight of him, and I find I cannot just leave him alone. 

“Come in” I tell him, fumbling for my keys, hands shaking slightly. 

He follows me into my small apartment, his swollen eyes looking around, taking in what my life looks like without him.

“Why are you here, Mal?” I ask him once more. 

He sits down on one of the barstools positioned along the small counter that separates my kitchen from the rest of the apartment, resting on his elbows, his head in his hands. 

“I made the worst mistake of my life Alina” he says quietly “I can’t…I just can’t do it anymore” 

I pity him, but I am not feeling generous.

“It wasn’t a mistake. Breaking a glass is a mistake, a car accident is a mistake! Impregnating someone is not a mistake.” I respond sharply.

“I fucked up!” he raises his head and looks at me, a fire in his blue eyes. “Jesus, I know I fucked up! When are you going to be done punishing me?” he’s yelling now. 

“I’m not punishing you!” I shout back. “But I cannot live my life, with you, and her, and your baby! That is not the life I want!” 

I can feel tears springing hot and angry to my eyes. I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry. He does not get that power over me. 

“Speaking of your pregnant girlfriend, does she know you’re here?” 

“Zoya doesn’t know anything” he replies, quiet once more. 

“Go home Mal. Go home to her. Live with your choices. I’m sorry you’re hurting, but I cannot help you” 

“Dammit Alina!” he yells, rising from the stool to his full height “Just listen to me for once in your life! I love you! I want you! I want to fix this!”

“There is no this!” I yell back, shaking with anger. “There has been no this since you fucked another girl behind my back! If this is being loved by you, I don’t _want_ it! I don’t want any part of it!” 

I’m crying now. I can’t help it. I feel fat tears rolling quickly down my cheeks. 

“I’m not leaving until we fix this!” he shouts brining his fist down hard on the counter, the dishes in the cabinets shake and clink together. “You’re not getting rid of me! You’re mine Alina, you know it as well as I do!” 

“Please leave, Mal. I am begging you” I choke out through the tears. “I can’t do this. I can’t help you.” 

“No.” he replies. Shaking with determination and rage. “I’m. Not. Leaving.” 

I’ve only seen Mal like this a few times before, and behind my attempted bravado, I am frightened. 

“Just- Give me a minute” I say, voice cracking.

\---------

I go into my bathroom and lock the door. I take three deep breaths, my legs are shaking and I attempt to steady myself on the sink to little success. I sink to the floor and let out a broken sob. What am I going to do? How did it get this bad? 

My phone buzzes in my pocket, for a brief moment I am afraid it will be Mal, telling me to come out, but it is a text from a number I don’t recognize. 

I open the message and read “It was lovely meeting you today Alina. I hope to see you again soon –Nikolai” 

Are you kidding me? This is exactly the last thing I need. I’m pissed. I’m beyond pissed. 

“How did you get this number?” I type quickly with a violent hit of the send button.

“Having a troupe of full time secret service agents at my beck and call does come with certain perks” he replies quickly. 

A full time security team. A thought comes to me. A desperate, stupid thought. 

“I need your help. How quickly can you be here?” I text him 

“My, Alina, we are being very forward tonight aren’t we. 15 minutes?” he responds. Ugh. Screw him. I knew this was a bad idea. 

“But, really, is everything okay?” he sends back quickly.

“My ex boyfriend showed up and he won’t leave. I just need him to leave” I reply. 

“Tell me the address. I’ll be there as quickly as I can” he says. 

I breathe a sigh of relief. I don’t know Nikolai. I don’t know if I trust Nikolai. But the desperate do desperate things, and I am in desperate need of help.

15 minutes, 15 minutes, I repeat in my head like a mantra, eyes fixed on my phone, counting the seconds, trying to steady my breathing. 

I make it to 5 before Mal starts banging on the door. “Alina please, talk to me” he says. 

“I need a minute” I respond, trying to control the shaking in my voice. 

He obliges, but I can hear him breathing heavily outside the door, an omnipresent reminder that I am not alone, and that he has me cornered. 

He gives me three more minutes before he starts banging violently on the door again. 

“You can’t hide in there forever” he shouts, followed by fists on the door so hard they shake the doorframe. I’m afraid he’s going to break the door and destroy my apartment. 

I rise off the cold tile to my shaking feet, close my eyes and take a deep breath, before slowly turning the lock and walking calmly out of the bathroom.

Just keep him calm until Nikolai gets here. Just keep him calm. 

“Okay. I reply slowly, walking over to where he stands by the counter, but not so close that I am within arms reach. 

“What do you have to say to me Mal?” I say, my chest rising and falling in an attempt to keep my breath steady. 

“I love you. I want you back” he says. I’m so angry with him I want to scream, but I can’t. Keep him calm. Keep him calm until Nikolai gets here. 

“What about your girlfriend?” I say

“She doesn’t matter. You’re the only thing that matters” he replies, eyes looking into mine, beseeching. 

This is how he talks about his pregnant girlfriend? Yikes. I shudder to think about how he talks about me when I’m not around. I wonder what he has said to her about me. 

I’m angry. I’m scared. I reply “Of course she matters. She’s having your baby” as much as it rips me in two to say it, it is the truth. 

“No she doesn’t!” he says, closing the distance between us with two long strides. He places his large hands on my shoulders and leans his face down just inches from mine “We can make this work” 

I’m frozen. I can’t make eye contact with him, so I stare just past his head, focusing on a blank space on the wall behind him. My brain is reeling, searching for a response, and I can feel him getting frustrated as the silence stretches on, hands on my shoulders gripping tighter, leaving rings of finger print shaped bruises along the tops of my arms. 

Just then, my front door swings open with a crack, and Nikolai is standing there in dark jeans and a navy t-shirt, hair disheveled, red faced and panting, It looks like he ran here. 

I expected he would come flanked by threatening secret service agents, but Nikolai has come alone. 

He takes in the scene quickly, I can almost see the wheels in his brain turning, calculating his next move. 

“Alina, my love, who is this?” he says casually, brows slightly raised at the scene before him. 

Mal drops his hands from my shoulders and turns to face Nikolai 

“My ex boyfriend Mal” I say. “He was just leaving” 

“Who is this?” Mal turns to me, fuming. 

“I’m her boyfriend” Nikolai responds confidently, as if Mal is barely worth his notice. “And I believe it is time for you to be going” 

“I’m not going anywhere!” Mal shouts “Alina, we can fix this!” I don’t know if I have ever seen him this angry before. 

Nikolai strides over to him, and although I feel terrible for getting a stranger into this mess with me, he almost looks as if he is having fun. 

“Its time for you to go” He says to Mal, voice low and dark 

Mal considers him for a second, then sets his mouth into a grimace, draws his arm back, and throws a punch aimed directly for Nikolai’s nose. 

Before I have time to scream, or intervene, or even breathe, Nikolai catches his fist before it makes contact, draws his own arm back, and breaks Mal’s nose in one fluid motion with a sickening crack. 

I shriek and lunge forward, helpless to stop the scene quickly unfolding before me. 

Mal stumbles back and blinks, stunned, nose pouring blood all over the linoleum of the small kitchen. 

“It’s time for you to go” Nikolai says calmly once more, flexing the bloodied fist at his side. 

“Alina?” Mal says desperately, wild eyes looking at me.

I’m still so stunned from what I just witnessed that I just stand there, stuck and speechless. 

Nikolai takes two steps over towards me and kisses me full on the mouth, warm and hard. 

He swings his arm around my shoulder possessively, then pulls back and makes eye contact with Mal who looks like he’s on the verge of passing out, throwing another punch, or puking. 

“Please leave, Mal” I finally say, quietly.

He throws one last dark look at Nikolai and I, before finally skulking out the door, which I immediately lock with an echoing “clink”. 

I stumble over to the kitchen sink afraid that I might vomit myself, as Nikolai lets out a triumphant laugh. 

I look up from the sink at him. 

“What’s so funny?” 

“I don’t think I’ve punched anyone since prep school. That was fun.” He replies, a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth, cheeks red from exertion.  

“I understand the punch, but was the kiss really necessary?” I ask. 

“I’m nothing if not committed to my role. We really had to sell it. Say what you will, but I doubt he’s coming back” 

He has a point, but that doesn’t make me any less annoyed. 

I busy myself putting the kettle on for tea. He came all the way over, I might as well offer him a glass of tea. 

“Thank you.” I say quietly. “You don’t even know me. You didn’t have to help me.” 

“I know that. But I wanted to, and I’ll never pass up an opportunity for valiancy,” he adds with a puff of his chest.

“You just texted me at such a weird time, and I thought you’d come with security…and I don’t know. It was stupid. I’m embarrassed mostly” 

“Oh I’d never let my security have all the fun. Plus, your ex boyfriend seems like a dick, but he hardly deserves to end up in federal prison for assaulting an agent” 

“You don’t know that for sure,” I say, cheering up slightly. 

“No I don’t. What did he do?” he asks, sitting down on my couch, kicking up his heels on my coffee table, looking perfectly at home. 

“He knocked up another girl, then came here tonight to beg me to get back together with him. She’s 7 months pregnant. Poor thing.” I reply 

“Okay so maybe some jail time would do him some good. It can be arranged.”

“Maybe” I laugh a hollow laugh.

I grab a washcloth from my bathroom and run it under hot water. I walk it over to Nikolai, who is lounging on my couch like he has never been more comfortable. 

“For your hand” I say, as I pass it to him. 

“Thank you.” He replies, pressing it against his bruising, bloodied knuckles. I pretend not to notice his sharp intake of breath and small flinch at the pressure. By the swelling I’d guess at least one is broken, but I suspect he already knows. 

“Can I ask you one question” he asks after a moment, looking over to me as I pour our tea into steaming mugs. 

“I think you’ve earned the right to ask a few questions tonight” I reply.

“Why didn’t you just ask Morozova to come over? Why me?” he says. He sounds strangely sad. 

It is a good question. One I hadn’t considered until now, and I’m not sure if I know that answer myself. In the back of my mind, a small dark thought floats in. It feels like darkness and fear. It feels like something crawling just under your skin. I do not know what Aleksander is capable of, and I’m not sure I want to find out. 

“You had better timing” I reply after a moment 

He smiles to himself, apparently appeased by my answer. 

“I have always prided myself on my timing” he replies, his voice steeped in bravado once more. 

I pick up the tea and make my way over to the couch to sit beside him. My couch is small and our legs almost, but not quite touch, and in that small space I feel a strange sort of electricity. 

I pass him his tea and it occurs to me that I never even asked him if he wanted any at all. 

He takes it with his right, unwounded hand, though, and sips it slowly. 

We sit in silence for a few moments before he begins to speak once more.

“You live far from campus” he says 

It takes me a moment to grasp his meaning. My cheeks flush in embarrassment once I do. 

“I don’t go to Harvard” I say

“Oh” is his only reply

I don’t feel like regaling him with the long story of my tragic life so I say “I go to UMass. It is a bit of a long story.” 

“You promise to tell me some other time?” he replies 

“Sure, Nikolai” 

“Great. You want to watch something terrible on Netflix?” 

“You did come all this way.” I laugh as I rise to pull my laptop off my bed.

We spend the rest of the night in mostly companionable silence, Nikolai and I. We order and pizza around 10, and I find he has horrendous taste in both pizza toppings and Netflix offerings. Pineapple and Bond movies. Gross.

He only attempts to put his hand on my thigh once, and laughs good naturedly when I swat it away. We talk a little, about mostly nothing, and I am surprised to find I genuinely enjoy his company. Nikolai is easily one of the most ridiculous people I’ve ever met. He’s also one of the most easy to like. He is all warm smiles and infectious confidence.

 

\---------- 

I don’t know when we fall asleep, but I wake around 4 am, my head on his shoulder and a ridiculous kink in my neck. I crawl into my bed across the room, but not before I throw a pillow behind his head on the couch and wrap a blanket around him. 

\---------- 

I wake in the morning to the sound of someone moving around my kitchen. I partially open my sleep covered eyes to find Nikolai in last night’s clothing making eggs.

“Good morning sunshine!” he greets me. “Did you know you only have eggs, ketchup, and carrots in your fridge? This is going to be a truly disgusting breakfast.” He says, punctuating the last thought with a wave of the spatula in my direction. 

“You stayed” is the only thing I manage to croak out, voice gravely and dry.

“And aren’t I glad it did, it looks like you would have starved to death without me.” He replies.

I manage to drag myself out from under the covers and to the bathroom while Nikolai hums The Battle Hymn of the Republic and aggressively scrambles our eggs.

Oh Alina, I think to myself. What are you going to do with all these goddamn boys? I immediately have a second thought: Oh god, Genya is going to love this. 

I make myself look like something resembling a human, but I’m not interested in impressing Nikolai, so the effort I put in is mostly focused on brushing my teeth and not wearing visibly stained clothing. 

He’s wrong. The breakfast is not revolting, but it is not great either. 

“Do you make it a habit of sleeping at stranger’s apartments?” I ask over the scrape of forks and the sipping of coffee.

“Only when they look like you” he laughs and gives me an exaggerated wink. 

“Shut up before I pour this coffee in your lap.” 

“No” he says “But I also don’t make it a habit of punching stranger’s ex boyfriends or watching Netflix documentaries, so it looks as if this is a relationship of exceptions…and I desperately hope we are no longer strangers.” 

“You’ve gifted me with this breakfast, so, sure, we’re no longer strangers” I reply.

“Not strangers is almost friends. I will take what I can get” he laughs. 

\--

He leaves soon after breakfast. I watch him from the window by my bed, and I see him get into a large shiny black SUV parked outside my building. I wonder if it has been there all night, waiting for him. 

I finally pick up my phone for the first time since last night. I have two missed calls from Aleksander. Dammit. I’m going to be in trouble. 

I check my email and find something even more unsettling

 

From [Morozova@harvard.edu](mailto:Morozova@harvard.edu):

Subject: I remember you

I finally recalled from where I knew your name. I pulled your admissions file. We need to meet.

Dr. Baghra Morozova

\-----

 

Oh no.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter officially makes this the longest thing I have ever written, which is kind of a big deal for me. This fic literally would not exist without all your kudos and amazing comments, so thankyouthankyouthankyou. Thank you for letting me know you like this fic, thank you for your incredible encouragement, thank you for engaging in this fandom with me and letting me live in this universe for a bit.
> 
> Please take this Darkling smut and Nikolai sass as a token of my gratitude and love.

I take the train to Cambridge directly after class the next day, heart pumping hard, blood thrumming through my body with anticipation. As soon as I make it to campus I’m immediately put on edge, afraid that I will run into Aleksander or Nikolai or even David and Genya who have been attached at the hip.

The streets are blessedly empty, though, and I follow a map on my phone to the building Baghra’s office is in. 

I walk into the empty echoing lobby and take the elevator up to the fourth floor. 

Her office door is propped open. She’s been waiting for me. 

I walk in nervously, not sure what to expect of this meeting at all. 

“Take a seat. Close the door, the hallway is freezing” she greets me unceremoniously

I close the door and take a seat in the small wooden chair positioned across from her desk, which is overflowing with papers and folders. The bookshelves that line the wall are chaos, full of bursting binders, dusty figures, and hundreds of books. Despite sunlight outside her blinds are closed tight, setting in the office in shadowy dimness. It almost feels like a look inside her brain. 

“Hello” I finally say, taking a seat. “Why did you need to meet with me Dr. Morozova?” I’m doing my best to sound professional and confident. I wonder if she can hear the tremor of fear in my voice. 

“Just Baghra. No need for this Dr. Morozova nonsense” she replies quickly with a wave of her wrinkled hand. 

The room is stiflingly hot. It smells like dust and old books. I rest my hands in my lap and try to control the fidgeting of my feet. 

“Okay, Baghra. Why did you need to meet with me?” I ask her once more, getting annoyed at the vagueness of it all. 

“I pulled your admissions file” she says, fishing under a teetering stack of papers on her desk to pull out a manila folder. 

She opens it, pulls out a slightly wrinkled sheet of white paper and begins to read 

“Alina Starkov. 18 Keramzin St. West Roxbury, Boston Massachusetts. Ward of the State” She looks up from the paper to make eye contact with me. I think she’s looking for confirmation that it’s me, but it feels like a challenge. 

I stare back in wide-eyed silence. 

When she gets no response from me, she lowers her eyes and keeps reading.

“4.4 weighted GPA, and ACT score of 35, 7 AP classes….only one extracurricular activity, you were a geography tutor at a local elementary school?” she raises her eyes to mine once more. 

“They needed the help” I respond quietly.

“You held down two jobs in high school. You wrote an essay, that, let’s see…” she says, leaning in to examine the paper closer “made an admissions officer ‘cry for the first time in 10 years’” she reads the quote in a mocking tone. 

“I was on the admissions committee when your file came through. I recommended you for admission unconditionally…so why, Ms. Starkov, aren’t you here?” 

“I couldn’t afford it” I respond. It’s not the whole truth, but it certainly isn’t a lie. 

“Bullshit.” She responds sharply “We have millions of dollars in financial assistance for students in your situation” 

“I suspect you know nothing about my situation, m’am” I blurt out. 

She gives me a disdainful look and continues. 

“We accept a small number of extraordinary transfer students a year. I’m willing to make your case to the committee.” 

“I didn’t ask for that. I’m happy at UMass” I respond. 

“Yes, but you don’t belong at UMass." 

“With all due respect, you don’t know anything about me” I say. 

“I know that you belong here” she responds coldly. I don’t know why she’s doing this, but it certainly isn’t out of affection for me. 

“I also know” she adds slowly “that you look at my son like he can save you. He cannot.” 

I’m at a loss for words so I just stare at her, shocked at confused by the whole tone of this meeting. 

“What’s your concentration?” she continues. 

“Electrical engineering” I say. 

“We can work with that” she responds. 

I don’t know what that means, but she’s not giving up.

“I’ll have to think about it” I say, anything to get her to stop talking. 

“I understand” she replies curtly. “Let me know what you decide.” 

I rise to my feet awkwardly to leave, gathering up my coat and bag in an ungraceful hurry. 

“Alina” she calls after me, I whip my head around to face her 

“Yes?” 

“What it infinite?” she asks. It feels like a test. I hesitate to answer, brain raking through a million different possibilities. 

“The universe and the greed of men” she says, answering her own question. “And my son” she continues, “is an expert on both” her eyes are narrowed her voice quiet. 

“Stay away from him” she adds darkly. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” I respond a little too sweetly. 

“Oh you foolish, foolish girl” she whispers “Shut the door on your way out. You’re letting all the heat out”

\-- 

I make my way through the hallway, down the elevator and out on to the street in a daze. I don’t know what I was expecting from our meeting but it wasn’t that. She’s simultaneously cold and kind. Insulting and encouraging. I don’t know if meeting her has helped me to understand Aleksander more or less. 

Her warnings about her son send a shiver up my spine. Am I so desperate for love that I am falling into something bad once more? Aleksander is intimidating, no doubt, but I believe beyond his façade of interminable icy coldness, there is something warm and human. You can’t fake the way he looks at me. 

I think about hopping on the train and going back to my apartment, but the thought of Aleksander and his storm cloud eyes stop me. I pull out my phone and send him a text. 

“Meet me at the library” he texts back quickly 

I cut across campus, eyes on the gathering storm clouds, hoping they don’t dump rain on me before I make it. My hair whips around my face, and the air smells heavy with rain, but my luck holds, and I make to Aleksander and the library unscathed and dry. 

He’s waiting outside for me, and despite all the times I have seen him by now, his beauty still knocks the wind out of me. His sharp jaw is set into a serious line; his quartz-grey eyes are staring right through me. His black sweater hangs just slightly off one shoulder exposing the pale hollow of his neck. The wind whips his dark hair around him, and he stands like a statue, unbothered by it all. 

“Alina” he greets me, tone unreadable. 

“Aleksander” I greet him. He makes no move to kiss me, which makes my stomach hang heavy with dread. 

“I hope you gave my mother my regards” 

Shit.

“How did you know I met with her?”

“Let me guess, she told you never to see me again” he replies, ignoring my question completely. 

“Yes” I say, allowing a small sad laugh to slip out “She also wants me to transfer here. I think she wants to be my advisor.” 

“And what do you think?” he says, voice still low and cold. 

“I think I’m confused.” I reply, honestly.

“About this?” he asks, a perfect hand gesturing between us. 

“About everything” I say. 

“Come with me” he says, grabbing me by the hand, lacing our fingers together. The simple gesture sends a thrill through me. I want more, always more of him touching me.

He leads me silently through the library, up stairs and through winding corridors, through stacks and stacks of books, pulling me deeper into the labyrinth. 

The gathering rainclouds have finally fractured, dumping a torrent of rain, beating hard against the window, and a crack of lightening illuminates the shadowy corners.

We are winding through shelves of books, no one else in sight, when he stops suddenly, grabs me by the shoulders and pushes me up against the shelf roughly, mouth crushing down on mine, kissing me hard.

His mouth softens, coaxing mine gently open, nipping and sucking on my bottom lip. I let a little moan escape my lips, and he pulls back to whisper a gentle “shhhhhh” against them. His fingers pull desperately through my hair, before wandering down to grab at my waist.

He winds his long fingers through mine and shoves our entwined hands up above my head, pinning me to the shelves, kissing me hopelessly all the while. 

He works his knee between my legs, coaxing them open. My body does as it’s told, and grinds down on it hard, relishing the low growl I draw out of him, as wanting between my legs grows stronger. 

He takes the hand that isn’t pining mine up against the shelves and shoves it up under my shirt, undoing my bra with one swift motion, and then covering one of my breasts with his large hand. 

He starts to thumb at my nipple, all the while sucking gently on my bottom lip, simultaneously urgent and achingly slow. 

I try to free the hand he has pinned up above my head, but he tightens his grip, his fingers in a bruising vice around my wrist. He slams it up against the books, growling “no” against my swollen mouth. 

He trails his mouth down my neck, licking the curvature of my shoulders in circular patterns, lavishing small bites, covering me in a collar of purple and red teeth marks. 

My heart hammers in my chest, my breathing quickening at his touch. I feel the hardness of his wanting pressed against me, and the hollow, quiet desperation of his breath. 

“More” I choke out. 

He obliges, quickly freeing my hand, finally, to undo his tight black jeans. He flips me over swiftly, so I’m leaning forward, facing towards the books.

He pulls up my skirt and my underwear to once side, entering me in one fluid motion. He’s so big inside of me it takes my breath away.

He pauses for a moment and kisses me sweetly at the pale juncture of my neck and shoulder. 

He thrusts into me slowly from behind, letting out a low moan. The feeling of us together is still like nothing else I have ever experienced. It’s like standing outside in a lightening storm. It’s like being buried alive. It’s like every individual cell in my body being lit on fire, one by one. 

He picks up speed, and grabs a fistful of my hair, pulling at it hard, fucking me harder.

I let a moan escape from my lips, and he takes his hand from my waist to my mouth, covering it roughly. 

“Shhhhh” he whispers teeth nipping at my earlobe. 

I feel an orgasm building quickly, my legs shaking, breath quick. 

He removes his hands from my mouth, and yanks hard at a fistful of hair at the nape of my neck, forcing my head back. His eyes meet mine, cold and desperate.

“Say my name” he whispers

“Aleksander” 

With a shuddering gasp, he comes inside of me, throbbing and hot. “Alina” he sighs out, and I join him. Knees almost knocked out from under me with the force of it. 

He pulls out and does his pants back up swiftly, running a hand through his thick black hair, returning it to its usual graceful disarray.

I smooth out my skirt and finger comb my hair for a moment, but I’m certain my efforts are fruitless. There’s no way to hide my bruising neck, lips and wrist. He has marked me all over, and there is not a thing I can do about it. 

He looks over at my efforts to undo his work, and smirks. 

“I’m not going to apologize, if that’s what you’re looking for” he says with a laugh. 

“It’s not.” I respond, walking away.

I turn the corner, exiting the row of books we just defiled, and stumble, almost running directly into someone. I steady myself, and look up to apologize, only to find a familiar face staring startled back at me.

“Alina!” Nikolai says, sounding equal parts delighted and shocked at my presence 

“What are you-“ he trails off, as Aleksander approaches behind me, taking in the sight of the two of us.

“Ah” he says to himself quietly.

“Morozova. Always a pleasure” he greets Aleksander, his tone anything but pleased. 

“Lantsov” Aleksander greets him with a nod “I’m shocked to find you even know where the library is” 

“Looks like you’ve been doing a lot of studying yourself” he quips back, voice drenched in mock seriousness.

He knows exactly what we were up to in the stacks. My face flushes and I train my eyes determinedly on the ground. 

“Always” Aleksander replies with a smirk.

“Alina, I hope you’re well” Nikolai says with a small nod in my direction, his tone is vaguely mocking which only makes me more embarrassed. 

I lift my eyes from the carpet, and gather the courage to look directly at him. 

He is not smiling, despite the forced ease of his tone.

He won’t make eye contact with me at all.

Aleksander winds his fingers through mine once more and squeezes them tightly, leading me away, leaving Nikolai standing in the stacks alone, teeth gnawing at the inside of his cheek, chest rising and falling, breathing too hard for someone simply standing in a library. 

\--

Aleksander walks me to the T, and we use the opportunity to catch up. He tells me about an event his Final Club is having. He tells me about a breakthrough in his research. I tell him about an upcoming midterm. I tell him about the child I nanny, and his ridiculous mother.

He does not ask about Baghra again. I don’t bring it up.

 

\--

At home later that night I receive a text from Nikolai.

“I didn’t know you were interested in aviation,” it says.

“I’m sorry, what?” I type. 

“Today, in the library, you were in the aviation section. Studying devotedly, no doubt. I admire your commitment to academia, Alina”

“Don’t be a jerk” I respond.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. We should talk about planes sometime. Can I take you to dinner this weekend?”

“No.” I respond, angry at the way he’s making fun of me.

“A state dinner then? My father is requesting I make an appearance at the next one. They’re mind-numbingly boring. You’ll hate my family. A great time will be had by all.” 

“You make a compelling offer. I’ll consider it.” I respond.

\-- 

I drift off to sleep that night, plagued by uneasy dreams of moving shadows and grey skies.

I wake too early the next morning, phone alight with texts from both Nikolai and Alekesander. 

In the haze of half sleep a thought floats across my mind. 

There are so many different ways to want someone. This wanting, though? This is the kind of wanting that hollows out your bones with sharp edges. It blinds you with its light.

 

This wanting? _It makes you weak_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You didn't think I was going to write a university au without library sex did you??


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this update has taken so long! Finals completely destroyed my brain and it has taken me this long to recover. The good news is, I have the rest of the story mapped out and I should be updating regularly again (I'm planning 4 more chapters for an even 10 parts). 
> 
> Thank you for being so patient with me! I love youuu.

I wake the next morning body heavy with the dread of certainty. Sleep always has given me clarity, and after a night of tossing and turning, I know what it is I have to do.

I have to go to Harvard.

And I have to end things with Aleksander.

I made this mistake once of making someone my whole life, and I’m not about to make that mistake again. Not for a boy with ghosts behind his eyes and a temper smoldering hot just beneath the surface of his pale skin. I’m not about to make that mistake for a boy who can already destroy me with a roll of his eyes.

I pull my laptop off of the table by my bed and send Baghra and email.

To: [Morozova@harvard.edu](mailto:Morozova@harvard.edu)

From: [alinastarkov@gmail.com](mailto:alinastarkov@gmail.com)

I’ve thought about your offer. I’ll transfer. But I want you to be my advisor. Let me know what the next step is.

Alina

\--

Baghra is terrifying, but I already know she is the kind of person I want in my corner.

I’ve spent too much of my life living it to please others. I spent my childhood trying to be good enough, because maybe if I was good enough my foster mothers would love me like my real mother was supposed to.

I spent my teenage years cutting myself into pieces to give to Mal.

Enough, I have decided. It is time to be selfish, to focus on me and only me.

So I bury myself in books at the library, making up the schoolwork I’d been neglecting. I spend my nights with take out and Netflix huddled on the small couch in the middle of my apartment. Genya joins me when she can, but it is rare that she manages to pull herself away from David. Not that I resent her for it, I really don’t. Genya has always known what she wants in a singular way I have always been jealous of.

She asks about Aleksander on the third day.

“David says Aleks has been looking particularly…forlorn” she says, breaking a long silence.

I don’t tell her about the “I miss you. Where are you?” texts I’ve been getting. I don’t tell her about the missed calls and the overwhelming guilt.

I’m a coward. I can’t even talk to him about it, because I know at the sound of his voice or the sight of his face I will lose my resolve.

“Really?” is all I say in return.

She’s kind enough not to pry.

 --

At night I dream of him and only him. Through a fog of grey the same color of his eyes I see long fingers and shock of dark hair. He haunts just the edges. Standing by a candle burning down to nothing. Then shadows that move like men come, they consume me, and I wake up panting, tears in my eyes, my hair slicked back with sweat.

I stop sleeping until it is absolutely necessary. I know what waits for me in the dark.

\--

On the fifth day I’m expecting another call. It doesn’t come and I’m filled with a strange sort of self-loathing and sadness. I know that this is what I wanted and I should be relieved, but all I feel is pangs of wanting and the premature ache of loss setting in, dark and heavy.

People leave you, Alina. You are not the kind of person people want to keep. He would have figured that out soon enough.

I go to class in the morning, then to work in the afternoon until it is dark outside. The baby is good, and while he naps I actually take the time to make him the organic baby food his mother always insists on, instead of smuggling in real baby food in my purse and just taking a nap with him.

I study on the couch, surrounded by calculus notes, trying desperately not to think of Aleksander and thinking of nothing else.

 _You made the right decision, you made the right decision_ plays through my head like a mantra.

\--

On the sixth day I send Baghra all of my necessary documents to transfer.

\--

On the seventh day, one week since I’ve spoken to Aleksander, my phone buzzes in my pocket, I grab it, excitedly, hoping desperately for it to be him.

Its not. Its Nikolai.

“Remember how I saved your life and you swore fealty to me for the rest of your mortal days?” it says.

“Hm. Nope. Drawing a blank,” I reply.

“Remember that you owe me a favor?” he says.

“Yes, that I remember.”

“I’m so sorry in advance,” he replies.

“Oh god, what do you need?”

“I need your social security number.”

“Is your favor that you need to steal my identity, because I don’t think that anyone is going to buy that your name is Alina Starkov.”

“Its for secret service clearance. I need you to go a dinner with me.”

“Oh god. What kind of dinner?”

“The usual. Some ambassadors. A few dignitaries. The Prime minister of Japan.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m sure you know a million more girls that you be better suited to attending a fancy dinner. I don’t know what to do with more than one fork. Stab myself maybe?”

“That’s as good an option as any,” he replies quickly, then sends a second text that reads “and I don’t want to go with any of those girls. I want to go with you.”

Why on earth would the son of the President of the United States want to go with me? I’ve seen the girls who go to his school. They’re beautiful and classy and smart. They have the cleanest hair I’ve ever seen. My hair is decidedly not clean, and I’ve never been to a restaurant with entrees that cost more than $15. My idea of a nice night out is Olive Garden and a bottle of two buck chuck. I’m certain I’m the least suited date to a White House dinner out of all of the people he knows.

Nikolai Lantsov might just be a crazy person.

“I do owe you a favor. Are you sure this is what you want to use it on?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

“Fine. But I’m going to embarrass you terribly and probably ruin all diplomatic relations with Japan for forever.”

“I look forward to it. I’ll email you the details and the information The Secret Service needs. Thank you Alina.”

“You’re not welcome. You’re going to regret this. It is going to be a disaster.”

\--

I open my email an hour later and find an email from Nikolai and a general secret service background check form.

I can’t help but laugh out loud. If Alina from two months ago had seen my inbox she would have thought it was a joke. In between emails from the son of the President of the United States there are emails confirming my transfer application to Harvard.

I send along my information to the Secret Service, and try not to let my nerves consume me. At least this is a diversion from all my anxiety about Aleksander. Refocusing all of my emotion on to something else doesn’t entirely seem productive, but it feels like progress so I’m holding on to it.

The dinner is in a week. Two days after Nikolai texts me I receive a letter in the mail. It looks hilariously out of place among credit card bills and grocery store coupons. My name is hand caligraphied on the back; the paper is the color of eggshell, heavy and expensive.

Inside I’m invited to join the President and First Lady of the United States at a dinner honoring The Japanese Prime Minister. Cocktail attire is requested.

I don’t know whether to laugh or throw up.

Nikolai doesn’t send a dress along like Aleksander, so I spend the next day scouring the sale rack at JCrew praying for something black and simple. A dress I can be ignored in. A dress that doesn’t scream “Look, an orphan has come to the White House! What a pathetic charity case!”

I find a simple black dress with an interesting enough neckline and I call Genya to borrow some fancy earrings. I’ll wear the heels Aleksander gave me.

Genya comes over on Saturday morning to get me ready, a glint in her eye that tells me she wants details. And she wants them now.

“First Aleksander Morozova and now Nikolai Lantsov. Alina Starkov, I feel like a proud mom”

“Shut up, please. Aleksander is over and Nikolai and I are just friends. I owe him a favor. This means nothing, I promise.”

She rolls her eyes in a way that lets me know she doesn’t believe a word I’m saying, then busies herself winding my hair into an intricate bun at the nape of my neck.

This is all eerily reminiscent of when she came over to get me ready for Aleksander’s award ceremony. Except this time my stomach is heavy with dread instead of excitement.

I will never understand why these rich fancy Harvard boys are looking at me and thinking I would make the perfect date to a fancy event. Though apparently good at standardized testing, they are exceptionally stupid.

Nikolai knocks on my door at 2:30.

I answer it and am taken aback. He’s wearing jeans and a tee shirt. What an asshole.

“The invitation said cocktail attire?” I say, confused, taking in his mussed hair and decidedly uncocktail like attire.

“I know it did, I’m changing on the plane.”

“The plane?”

“You didn’t think a White House Dinner was taking place in Boston did you? We’re flying down to DC.”

“2:30 did seem suspiciously early for a dinner. Why didn’t you tell me?

“You’re smart. I assumed you’d put two and two together.”

“I don’t exactly hang out with people who have their own planes”

“I don’t have my own plane…my dad does.”

I roll my eyes in a huff, turn to shut and lock my door behind me, and follow Nikolai to the small fleet of dark SUVs waiting on the curb just outside my building.

He opens the door to the back seat and I slide in as gracefully as possible, which as it turns out, is not graceful at all. He slides in next to me and nods at the black suited man behind the wheel.

He picks up the sunglasses hanging from his shirtfront and perches them on his crooked nose. He looks like a mix between a boxer and Kennedy.

We don’t say much of anything on the way to the airport. He seems entirely at ease, but I’m not sure how I’m supposed to act with two secret service agents sitting two-feet away from me.

We bypass the normal terminal at Logan Airport, instead taking a small side street, and passing through gate after gate before pulling directly up to the tarmac and next to a small jet, American Flag emblazoned on its tail.

Nikolai slides out first, and takes my hand, helping me down from the massive car. The gesture is sweet, but only serves to make me self-conscious.

Nikolai strolls confidently over to the plane like he’s done this a million times before. Then I remember that he has.

He takes my hand once more to help me up the steep small set of stairs leading into the plane.

Standing at the entrance are two handsome men in Air Force uniforms. The taller one with salt and pepper hair reaches out to shake my hand.

“A pleasure to meet you Miss Starkov. I’ll be your pilot this afternoon.”

I nod a stunned gesture that I hope communicates my thanks.

“Nikolai!” he exclaims more casually to the boy standing at my side “Are you going to fly her today?” he asks, gesturing to the plane around us “I promise I won’t mention it to your dad!” he finishes, conspiratorially.

“Nah, not today James. I think I’d better keep Alina company back here”

He places his hand on the small of my back and leads me to a pair of soft beige leather chairs, facing each other near the back of the plane.

The opulence of the plane is stunning. Its all shinning mahagony, crystal glass wear, and leather. There’s a full bar, two TVs and an entire queen size bed. The tiny plane sized windows are adorned with equally tiny curtains. It’s magnificent.

“You fly planes?” I ask Nikolai as we take a seat.

“Oh it’s even better than that. I fly planes in secret.”

 “How does one fly planes in secret?”

“I got my pilot’s license on my 19th birthday. My dad still has no idea,” he explains. “DC has a million airfields, and I had plenty of willing teachers. My dad thinks its too dangerous though. He seems to forget we’re a democracy and not a monarchy.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“He treats me like his heir apparent. Like I’m fragile and precious and hopelessly important to the nation.”

“You—“ I meant to say “You are important” but the remainder of the sentence is cut off by a noise somewhere between a scream and a choke. The plane lurches forward once more and I grip the plush armrests as tightly as I can.

“Are you okay?” Nikolai asks, voice rife with concern.

“I-uh-yeah. I’m fine” I choke out, looking out the plane window in horror as we rapidly gain speed.

“You’re acting like you’ve never been on a plane before,” he laughs.

I shoot him a look.

“Oh. You’ve never been on a plane before.” He says quietly.

I want to say something, anything in return, but I am struck speechless by the plane reaching an impossible speed, and lifting slowly off the ground. I close my eyes and attempt to take deep breaths.

“How is that even possible?” Nikolai asks. He sounds sad.

“I grew up poor, we weren't exactly taking family vacations, and its not like I have a lot of disposable income with which to travel with now,” my breath is coming steadier, as the plane levels out. But I still can’t tear my eyes away from the rapidly disappearing ground below us.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have made any assumptions.”

“It’s fine. Not everyone is as fancy as you, Nikolai Lantsov…actually I suspect no one is as fancy as you.”

“Fair point,” he laughs.

A stewardess appears from nowhere and serves me the fanciest sandwich I’ve ever seen in my life. It has apples on it. Apples!

Nikolai and I spend the short flight teasing each other and watching some kind of superhero movie that’s playing on the massive TVs. I mostly just listen to the dialogue though, finding I can’t tear my eyes away from the ground below.

30 minutes from DC Nikolai emerges from the bathroom in an immaculately tailored navy blue suit, and I have to admit he’s handsome. He’s not all sharp lines and piercing gazes like Aleksander, but his easy smile and mussed up hair have their own roguish charm. He also has nice forearms. Forearms are a terribly underrated body part.

I only wince a little when the plane lands, and I see Nikolai smiling at me from the corner of my eye.

We’re whisked off the plane and through dark streets of DC in a fury, and before I know it, I’m standing beside Nikolai in a cavernous room in the middle of the White House about to meet the President and First Lady of the United States.

“They’re going to love you,” Nikolai leans over and whispers reassuringly to me, as the receiving line creeps ahead, pushing us closer to them. “And I honestly wouldn’t care if they didn’t. In fact, them hating you would almost certainly gain you points in your favor.”

“I didn’t realize there was a score card,” I whisper

“Of course there’s a scorecard. And you, my darling, are positively crushing the competition.”

I simply roll my eyes at him, certain my preferred reply would not be appropriate given the company we’re in.

The couple in front of us finishes greeting the President, and Nikolai and I are pushed forward, until I’m standing face to face with the First Lady, her beautiful face frozen in an unblinking icy smile.

“Who is this Nikolai?” she whispers at her son through her teeth.

“Mother, this is my date, Alina Starkov”

“Oh.” She replies, face still frozen in the picture of serenity, just barely fraying at the edges.

“And do you go to Harvard Alina?” she asks, still not making eye contact with me.

“No, ma’am, I go to UMass.”

“We always thought Nikolai would find a Harvard girl, Clare Calloway perhaps, Nikolai? Hm? She was so beautiful…” she trails off, her voice drenched in sweetness.

“Clare Calloway is a pretentious, boring asshole, mother,” Nikolai responds, his voice mimicking his mother’s quiet tone.

I choke down a laugh.

“Always a pleasure” he finishes, placing his hand on the small of my back, and walking away from his mother with a diplomatic nod of his head.

We greet his father next. He hugs Nikolai with a clap on his back and shakes my hand warmly, forgetting to ask for my name.

“Son,” he nods at Nikolai

“Dad.” Nikolai responds, before leading me away from them, and out into the general cocktail party surrounding us.

“You’re right, they adored me” I turn to him, laughing.

“I’m sorry about my mom,” he replies with a roll of his eyes.

“I’m sorry you broke up with Clare Calloway, she sounds like a catch.”

“Oh, you don’t even know. Mean as a snake, high maintenance, petty, shallow. She is the one that got away, for sure,” he laughs.

“Why couldn’t you crazy kids make it work?”

 “We dated for a summer when we were 15. My mother’s poor broken heart will never recover”

He deftly snags two flutes of champagne for us from a passing waiter and watches, eyebrows raised in admiration, as I drain mine in one go.

“It’s going to be a long night,” he sighs as he grabs me another.

We are soon called into the massive sparkling dining room for dinner. We are seated at the table, which appears to me, to be as long as a football field. Maybe two. The menu is a tribute to their Japanese guests, as is the décor. I can barely see the white-haired couple seated across from us because of the hulking cherry blossom centerpieces.

Nikolai chats animatedly with the people around us, while I pick awkwardly at soba noodles and gyoza. He kindly attempts to include me in conversation, but, perhaps more kindly, lets me be when it is clear I’m more comfortable being ignored.

The five-course meal takes hours, and by the time the hot sake and green tea sorbet arrive, I’m just drunk and tired enough to want to crawl under the massive dining table, fall asleep, and never come out.

Nikolai must sense my exhaustion because he kindly reaches under the table to squeeze my hand reassuringly.

“If you’ll excuse me, Senator Wilkes,” he says to the man sitting next to him.

He rises from the table gracefully and takes me by the hand with him.

He leads me through winding halls, and had it been daylight, and I would have asked to stop and look at the portraits and artifacts lining the corridors. It is crazy to me that to him, this must just be his parent’s house.

He leads me through a door and out into sprawling rose garden. I pause and close my eyes, feeling the cold air on my too-warm face, inhaling the sweet scent of the flowers.

He leads me over to the edge of a fountain, surrounded by rose bushes covered in fairy lights. The scene in the empty garden is downright magical.

“You’ve been a good sport tonight” he says softly.

“I’ve had fun, really,” I reply. He shoots me a questioning look that lets me know he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying, so I add “mostly…” with a small laugh.

“Why did you invite me?” I ask, alcohol loosening my tongue just a bit.

“Would you believe me if I said I can’t stop thinking about you?” He whispers, eyes serious, staring beseechingly into mine.

“No-“ I start to say, but am cut off by the warm pressure of his lips against mine.

His mouth is warm, lips soft, they move gently and deliberately, not at all like the frenzied fire of Aleksander’s kisses.

And to my surprise, I find myself kissing him back, a small thrill zipping up my spine as I move my lips against his, hands finding their way up his neck, to rake my fingers through his thick hair.

But still, it feels empty.

He must feel it too, because he pulls back, eyes sad and says “You’re thinking about Morozova aren’t you?”

I stare back in stunned silence. So what if I am? I want to say to him. I’m here with you aren’t I? But I don’t say anything at all.

“I’m not going to do this with you right now, Alina. Not until you’re thinking about me instead of trying to forget him,” he whispers sadly, playing with the fingers of my hand that’s resting on this thigh.

“It’s not like that…” I try to explain, but find myself at a loss for words.

“I don’t think I’ve wanted anything this badly in a long time.” He says “But I’m not going to be your rebound, Alina,” he meets my eyes and smiles a charming smile that doesn’t quite touch the sadness still present in his warm hazel eyes.

“Why not?” I ask him with a raise of my eyebrow.

“Because I want more than that,” he replies simply, honesty evident on his face.

I pause for a second to think, to try to come up with an adequate reply. I open my mouth to reply but what comes out is a long yawn.

“Let’s go home” Nikolai says, winding his fingers through mine, leading me out of the garden.

I must fall asleep in the car on the way to the airport, because hours later, in a haze, I feel someone nudging me awake.

“Alina…Alina,” Nikolai is whispering to me, tapping me on the shoulder, brushing the hair that’s fallen in front of my face back from my eyes.

I’m laying across the back seat of the car that picked us up, and I can tell, despite the inky darkness that we’re outside of my apartment.

“Wake up, sleeping beauty,” Nikolai says, and I reach up to swat his arm

“Ah, there she is!” he exclaims at my sign of life.

I peel myself off of the leather seat, and exit the car, still in the hazy fog of sleep.

Nikolai gets out, he’s still in his suit, but his tie is loosened and his hair is a mess.

“How’d I get here?” I ask, voice gravely.

“I carried you from the car to the plane, and then from the plane to the other car. I would have carried you up to your apartment to, but I don’t know where your keys are and I also know you would have killed me.”

“That’s correct.” I mumble, fishing for my house keys in the ridiculous clutch Genya forced me to borrow.

Nikolai walks me to my door, and gives me a warm hug. He smells like cedar and ink.

“I think I’m the one who owes you a favor now,” he whispers into my hair.

“I won’t forget it,” I reply.

I lock the door behind me with a click and kick off my heels and rip off my dress as I walk across the length of my apartment, falling straight into bed, knowing I’ll regret not washing my face in the morning.

I wake the next afternoon, and check my phone, which somehow I managed to plug into its charger when I came home last night.

I have 3 texts from Nikolai. I’ll deal with that later.

I have 5 from Genya, I open them.

 

“ALINA”

“OH MY GOD ALINA”

“YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL I’M SO PROUD”

“MYSTERIOUS BRUNETTE, I’M DYING”

and then a link to a NY Post article

I hit the link, my stomach heavy with dread.

 

“America’s Playboy Prince Spotted With Mysterious Brunette At White House Dinner” the headline reads. Oh no. I look down at the article.

 

_Is Nikolai Lantsov, America’s favorite first son finally ready to settle down? The notorious playboy appeared at last night’s State Dinner honoring Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe with a mysterious brunette on his arm. This is the first time the Harvard junior has brought a date to an official state function in two and a half years. Could things be getting serious perhaps? Sources tell us that Nikolai is in love, and couldn’t wait to introduce his new gal pal to his parents. “They’ve never seen him this happy” the source tells us “Nikolai really feels like he’s found the one this time.” Who is the mysterious beauty that’s captured the heart of America’s favorite bad boy? Only time will tell, but we can guarantee you, from the way Nikolai looked at her last night, she’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”_

 

Accompanying the article is a picture of Nikolai and I smiling, his arm wrapped around my waist, champagne flute in my hand, and another of me seemingly in deep conversation with his mother.

 You’ve got to be kidding me.

I have a raging headache and suddenly have no motivation to get out of bed, so I decide to call this day failure already and stay in bed all day.

I alternate Netflix and napping, pointedly ignoring the endless buzzing of my phone at my bedside. I will deal with it all tomorrow. This day is my own.

Around 7 I decide that I should probably eat, and order a pizza from my favorite place just down the street.

Just minutes later, I’m started by two sharp knocks at my door.

I toss my laptop to the side, rising from my bed to answer the door, shocked that my food came so quickly.

I undo my deadbolt, and open my door, not to pizza, but to a very disheveled, upset looking Aleksander Morozova.

The circles under his eyes are the most prominent I’ve ever seen them, purple and blue against the pale white of his skin. His dark hair is too long and stuck up in all sorts of funny angles.

His dark black jeans have a hole in the knee, and his black tee shirt is fraying at the hem.

Clutched too tightly in his large hand is a newspaper.

I stare at him in shock.

 

“Lantsov, Alina? Are you fucking kidding me?”

 

 

           


	7. Chapter 7

Aleksander is a mess. 

He’s normally so put together, but right now in front of me he looks as if he’s coming apart at the seams. 

“Please leave” I say calmly. I can’t look at him too closely or I might burst into tears. He can’t be here. I don’t want him here. I  _can’t_ want him here. Here at my door when all I want to do is drag him inside and into my bed.

“Tell me what I did” he’s begging me, I’ve never seen him so exposed before, he might as well have his heart laid bare in front of him for me to stomp on.

“You didn’t do anything.” I whisper.

“Then why are you doing this?” he asks, his voice soaked in desperation. He drags a hand through his mussed up hair.

“I don’t want a boyfriend, okay” I reply. I can’t look him in the eye.

“I never said I wanted to be your boyfriend” he responds coldly.

“A boy then, I don’t want a boy” I say, hands gesturing wildly toward him.

“I’m not a boy” he says darkly.

I throw up my hands in exasperation. “I said no! That should be enough!”

“But you didn’t say no. You’re giving me excuses. Give me a reason why we shouldn’t be together, Alina. You feel this, this thing between us. I know you feel it too. It is you and me. No one else. Certainly not Lantsov” he spits Nikolai’s name out with disgust.

“Oh god, don’t be an idiot, this isn’t about Nikolai”

“Then explain this” he shouts, shoving the crumpled up newspaper in his shaking hands towards my face.

“I owed him a favor! We are friends! We went as friends!” I shout back, taking a step closer towards him.

“Is this how you act with all of your friends?” he’s mocking me, and anger seeps its way into my body.

“Why am I justifying this to you?” I yell, so incredibly frustrated and unnerved by his presence, by him showing up here uninvited. A small part of me wants to shout with joy, to jump into his arms and make out with him violently right here in the hallway. A larger, smarter part of me is enraged. How dare he show up here like I owe him anything at all, like he owns me. This is exactly what I wanted to avoid, and Aleksander is only confirming my fears and strengthening my resolve. I will never again be with someone who wants to own me. 

“You’re justifying this, because you want me too.” He says quietly. 

“No. Aleksander, I don’t. I’m sorry but I don’t” I’ve always been a terrible liar, and he knows I’m lying now, I can see it in his face. 

“Figure it out Alina. You know where to find me when you do.” He says, voice so low it is almost a growl. He throws the newspaper still clutched in his hand to the ground and sulks off down the hallway, long legs carrying him quickly to the stairwell then out of sight.

I step back into my apartment and lock the door, hands shaking. I sink down into my bed and close my eyes. I don’t know how I managed to get myself into this much trouble. There’s Aleksander showing up here, claiming we are meant to be together. There’s Nikolai who wants to give me access to the type of life I’ve only read about in books. And then there’s me. There’s Alina. What is it that I want? 

I’m startled by a knock at the door. Not again, I sigh internally, but it isn’t Aleksander or even Nikolai or Genya. It’s my pizza. I hand the deliveryman a wad of cash and tell him to keep the change. I find I’ve completely lost my appetite so I stick the pizza in the fridge. Cold pizza for breakfast tomorrow sounds about right.

I want to go to sleep, I decide, that is the only thing I know for certain. The rest can wait until morning.

\--

The acceptance letter comes on a Tuesday, two days after Aleksander showed up at my door. It arrives in my small mailbox with little fanfare, just a large 8 by 11 inch envelope folded around a credit card bill and a stack of coupons. 

I wait until I’m up in my apartment to open it. I already know what it contains, but I feel like I need to gather myself, gather the strength to open it and face all of the changes to my life that will follow. This letter is the first domino and a series of dominoes to which I see no end. The thought is both thrilling and terrifying. 

I throw my bag down by the door and carry the large envelope over to the kitchen counter. I slide a bitten down finger nail under the seal, jaggedly tearing it open

“Ms. Alina Starkov,

Congratulations, it is our pleasure to welcome you to Harvard University for the 2015-2016 school year….” 

My hands are shaking. For something that it supposed to be a new beginning, this sure feels like déjà vu. Expect instead of Mal over my shoulder, there’s the shadow of a boy whose name I’m trying incredibly hard not to think about right now. 

I pull out my phone and dial Baghra’s office number.

“Yes?” she answers harshly, like I surprised her or that she’s never used a phone before and is confused by its ringing.

“Hi Baghra, it’s me, Alina. I just wanted to let you know I’ve been accepted”

“Of course you were. Didn’t we talk about this yesterday?” she responds, annoyed.

“Um. No. No we didn’t” I reply, confused. 

“I meant to call you yesterday to tell you. I could have sworn I called you” I hear the rustling of papers like she’s searching for some physical documentation that she called me yesterday on her nightmare of a desk.

“Well you didn’t…” I trail off, uncertain of how to proceed. 

“It doesn’t matter now. You need to register. I’ll send you the classes you need to take. You need to be here for the summer. Email housing. Send them to me if they give you any trouble.” 

“Housing? I already have an apartment” I reply. 

“All undergraduates are required to live on campus, you stupid girl. Did you not even read the damn admissions website? You’ll be assigned to a house like its goddamn Harry Potter.” She huffs. 

“Um, okay. I’ll call them.” 

“Good. Anything else? I’m busy.” She replies shortly. 

“No I guess not…but thank you Baghra. What ever you said to the committee, it worked.” 

“I told them about you. That is all I did. You did the work. Now you will do more work.”

She hangs up unceremoniously with a click.

After that things begin to happen alarmingly quick. I take my finals, and manage to pass, despite that fact that I feel as if I can’t focus on anything lately. They served as a nice distraction though, and now that I’m not whittling away my days in the library, I take on extra waitressing shifts to avoid having any time to really examine my life too closely.

Housing assigns me to a house right away. I mention that Baghra is my advisor in my email and I get the feeling that they want to mess with her even less than I do.

Genya and David take over my lease. Genya’s current roommate is a French exchange student. Genya’s mother thought it would be good for her French, but that’s not exactly the way things worked out. Marie is petty and mean. When she’s not drinking until six am she’s sleeping until 2pm. And she hates David. A French roommate doesn’t do you much good when she refuses to speak to you. So when Genya offered the possibility of taking over my lease to David he jumped at the chance. He still has to maintain a residence on campus, but his dad is some kind of Vice President at Google, so he has money to spare. Genya tells me how excited they are to have a place to be alone, but I suspect she asked David to buy me out as a favor. Regardless, I know I owe them both endlessly.

David and Genya rent a Uhaul on a Sunday afternoon and help me pack up the old studio apartment. Genya wears overalls, a flannel shirt and her hair in pigtail braids. I know that she’s helping me move out of my apartment mostly out of the goodness of her heart, but the girl took the opportunity to dress “moving out chic’ and ran with it. I see David sneaking glances at her all day, staring with wonder like he can’t believe he ever got so lucky.

When we finally finish hauling out my bookshelf table, the last piece of furniture to go, I close the door and lock it with a click. I feel like I should be feeling some kind of sadness or nostalgia, but all I’m thinking is “good riddance.”

David deftly navigates the narrow cobblestoned streets of Cambridge in the hulking Uhaul van. He pulls up to Dunster right after 3 pm, and my blood runs cold. The building is beautiful. Old and regal, standing tall right next to the Charles River. It is red brick, except for a large white clock tower, the stuff of postcards and admissions brochures. 

It is the same building Aleksander took me to the night we met.

Aleksander and I have to live in the same dorm?

I attempt to focus on my breathing, in and out, in and out so Genya and David, currently flirting in the back of the truck, don’t notice that anything is wrong. 

There is nothing you can do about this Alina. Focus on what you can control. You don’t know anything for certain yet. 

I follow David and Genya, swiping my newly minted student ID card on a door that leads to a courtyard, surrounded by more red brick and white doors to student quarters.

You’re through entrance H, David directs me, leading me through the door and up a flight of narrow stairs and through a hallway covered in old white chipping paint.

“237, this is you” he says, taking a step back to allow me to get through with my key. 

I take a deep breath, plunge my key into the stiff old lock, and twist.

The door swings open before me. For something so momentous, the scene in front of me is awfully dull. I’ve been put in a two-person suite, though I’ve been told I’ll be the only one occupying it for the summer term. My roommate will arrive in the fall with most of the other students in the house. 

The main room is an odd triangular shape, with a boarded up fireplace set into the back wall. The ceiling is low, the floors a warm brown wood. I creep into the room and off into the bedroom on the right. There’s an iron twin bed frame with a university issued mattress, but other than that it is bare. The bathroom is covered from the floor up the walls with aging white tile, well worn over the years by the hundreds of others who once occupied this room. The small white pedestal sink also looks as if it has seen better days. The most bizarre thing is the shower, set into the corner of the small bathroom. There is a showerhead attached to the ceiling, enclosed by three cement walls and a tattered blue shower curtain. I peek inside. It looks just like how I imagine a prison showed would be. But still, despite the dinginess of the old building, despite the prison shower and the uncomfortable looking twin bed, I am excited. I am thrilled; because this is the life I have always wanted. I’ve never lived in a dorm. Living off campus was cheaper and it was easier to get to work. Here I will get a work-study job in the library. My tuition is covered by scholarships and grants. I will not struggle to pay rent or eat; I can finally focus on being a student. I can focus on being Alina, and figuring out exactly what that means. I don’t know what it is like to live without struggling, but I cannot wait to find out.

After my quick glance around the room I return to the Uhaul to help Genya and David haul in the rest of my things.

I have an armful of clothing precariously balanced when a jogger comes sprinting by me, almost knocking me over.

I can barely see over the mound of sweaters, but he runs up to the end of the block, does an almost comical double take, then turns around to walk cautiously towards me. 

Nikolai. Of course. I’ve been responding to his texts, which is more than I can say for Aleksander. We’ve been talking about planes and Netflix marathons, and mostly nothing at all, but when the conversation turns the slightest bit serious, I stop responding. 

I didn’t tell him about Harvard. I didn’t tell anyone but Genya, really.

And now here he is, cute in a sweaty sort of way, staring at me wide eyed and confused. 

I have to admit it gives me great joy to see Nikolai Lantsov at a loss for words. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him at a loss for words before. 

“Hello, Alina…” he says slowly, obviously confused about how to proceed. 

“Hello Nikolai” I respond casually, as if nothing could be more natural than me moving in to a dorm after a university transfer I told him nothing about. 

After it is clear I’m not going to offer him an explanation he finally asks “What are you doing here” 

“Moving in.” I reply sheepishly. 

“Are you stalking me?” he asks, back to his usual Nikolai bravado. 

“I could say the same to you” I reply with a laugh. 

“But you don’t actually go here.” He says, still obviously confused at the scene before him. 

“I do now… “ I reply reluctantly. “An advisor I ran into on campus remembered my application from high school and convinced me to transfer.” 

“Congratulations” he says, his tone is genuine, but I can tell he’s still confused. After a moment he throws his hands up as if in defeat and asks, “well what can I carry?”

I feel a little guilty roping Nikolai into this, but he seems genuinely eager to help, and good naturedly grabs my coffee table from out of the van and begins following David up to my room. Genya throws me a questioning look over her shoulder, and I simply offer a shrug in return. 

The job certainly goes faster with Nikolai, and 45 minutes later my small room is mostly complete. My clothes are in the closet, bedding on the bed, but I suspect it will take a long while until it feels like home. 

The four of us stand in the room for a moment admiring our handiwork, when Genya gives David a look that says “follow me”, poor David raises his eyebrows in confusion, then offers an awkward goodbye to the two of us. Genya gives me a hug and whispers “you’re welcome” in my ear. I wish I could explain to her that Nikolai and I are really just friends, despite his confession in the Rose Garden, but Genya will believe what Genya wants to believe. 

“I think it is time for coffee” Nikolai declares as they walk out the door. 

He takes me to a small shop just around the corner. There are a few people typing away on laptops in the corner, but the term is up so it is mostly empty. He orders us two massive iced coffees and I find a table near the window.

He’s still in his running clothes and I begrudgingly admit I find it endearing. I’ve never seen Nikolai looking like anything less than a Vineyard Vines catalogue before.

“Thanks for helping with the move” I say as he sits down with our drinks.

“No problem, I hope you know you could have asked me. Things like this must be hard without parents.” 

“yeah-“ I begin to respond, but my blood runs cold. “Wait. I never told you about that” I say, confused and upset. 

“Oh, um” Nikolai’s eyes go wide, like an animal caught in a trap, he’s scrambling desperately for an answer, but I cut him off.

“Did you research me?” I spit at him, disgusted. 

“Come on, it wasn’t like that at all” he replies, tone still breezy. He’s clearly trying to defuse the situation.

“Then enlighten me Nikolai, what was it like” I say coldly. 

“The secret service had to look you up for that stupid dinner, I asked to see the file too. I like you Alina! You’re so secretive, I wanted to know more about you!” 

“Then you could have asked me. Not your security.” 

“It wasn’t that easy, you know that.”

“That’s not true” I reply, my hands are shaking. 

“Of course it’s true! You make everything hard.” He says with a laugh, like anything about this is funny. 

“You had no right to do that” I reply slowly. 

“I’m sorry, all right? I’m sorry” he says.

“What else do you know about me?” I ask, I have to know. My life is not an open book for boys to read. I don’t own him anything. Let alone my life’s story. Liking me does not mean he gets to read me like an open book. I keep things close to the chest for a reason. 

“I know that you’re an orphan, I know that your mother was arrested more than a dozen times for meth possession and that you have no father listed on your birth certificate. I know that you have two jobs. Jesus, Alina, two jobs and school?” 

“Four jobs” reply quietly, upset at the mention of my mother. “Two nanny jobs as well, both under the table” I mutter, eyes focused on my shoes. 

“I’m sorry,” he says again flashing a charming smile, expecting all to be forgiven. 

“You had no right to do that” I say quietly, once more.

“Listen Alina, a Harvard educated orphan and the president’s son? People are going to eat it up. The press is going to love it. I’ll make the senate by 30” he says, tone joking, but eyes serious. He means it. I can tell how genuinely he means it. He wants me to be his political trophy wife after all. The rich good old boy and the foster care success story. I’m going to vomit. 

“Fuck you Nikolai” I say, standing up from the table, walking away swiftly.

I hear him pull his chair out, but I don’t turn around. “Alina, come on Alina. You know that’s not what I meant” he yells after me. 

He gives up after a block.

I stumble back to the building by the river, still shaking and numb with the sting of betrayal. I make my way back up to my room, collapse on the rickety on twin bed and cry until the sky goes dark.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry you guys! I promise things will cheer up soon. Poor Alina. Poor Nikolai and Aleksander. Genya and David are blissfully happy and that must count for something right??


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry you guys, this one is a little short, but it seemed like a natural stopping place and I just wanted to get this posted. The next chapter will be a little longer to make up for it. Only two chapters left! As always, I love you for reading!

I wish I could say that the first few days at my fancy new school passed in a flurry of excitement and importance, but classes don’t start for a few more days, and I spend my days exchanging awkward nods at my new housemates and quickly scurrying back up to the comforting solitude of my room. 

I’m adjusting slowly. 

The house dining hall is insane. It looks like a mix between The Great Hall at Hogwarts and King Henry the VIII’s hunting lodge. Taxidermy Moose and portraits of serious looking people adorn the walls, and the chandeliers, positioned high along the vaulted ceiling look like something a masked villain would use to drop on a scheming Duke in an Alexandre Dumas novel. It is a place I feel supremely silly eating mac and cheese and a diet coke, but old habits die hard. I’m finding that Harvard-Alina is exactly the same at Real World Alina. I’m not sure if the realization is comforting or disappointing.

The people that I’ve met are nice enough, but my one earnest attempt to make friends was disastrous. I decided to exit my comfort zone in favor of sitting with a group of friendly looking students in the dining hall. It turns out the friendly looking group of students were the fencing team, and they weren’t that friendly at all. When I asked them about their swords, they laughed in my face, open mouthed guffaws. It turns out their swords are called foils and that the Harvard fencing team, though nice-looking, are as cold as they come. 

I begin taking my meals up to my room exclusively after that.

\-- 

I go to the bookstore in bustling Harvard Square three days before my summer term classes are set to begin. Though I’ve always been a good student, I’ve never been the type to read ahead, but I’ve quit my many jobs and I’m finding I’m desperate to find something to fill my time. I’m so used to every second of my day being scheduled and without that kind of structure, I don’t know what to do with myself. I never anticipated missing working and going to school full time, but a small masochistic part of me longs for my old life. Was it only a week ago that I moved? It feels like so much longer.

I approach the register with a stack up books up to my chin, and the pretty girl with a nose ring behind the counter scans them all methodically. “$407.07” she says, looking up at me from the pile. That amount of money still seems staggering to me, but with my new grant money secure in my account, I don’t even flinch as she swipes my credit card. 

I used to hold my breath for any charge over eighteen dollars.

I wander the streets of Cambridge aimlessly for the next few hours, the weight of my new books in my backpack weighing heavily on my shoulders. I could drop them off in my room, but carrying around my books with me, here, on this campus somehow makes it feel more real.

I pick up a cup of coffee and make my way over to Harvard Yard to set up camp and begin my reading under a tree. 

It is a warm day, and the sunlight streams through the leafy branches of the tall oak trees that dot the massive lawn, but my relaxation and focus are interrupted by tour groups and gawking tourists. At one point, a man animatedly speaking Japanese to his wife stops to snap a picture of me, like I’m an animal at the zoo. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

As the sun sets, I take a leisurely walk along the river, and finally back to my room.

I’m greeted by nothing but darkness and silence, and I try not to feel the loneliness tightening itself around my heart.

I came here to find myself and all I’ve found so far is a decent place to get coffee and how to avoid the jocks in the dining hall. 

I turn out my lights and fall asleep at 9:25pm. 

\-- 

Days later, my classes finally begin, and I welcome the distraction. 

I’m taking three classes this summer: multivariable calculus, a required religion class on the Old Testament, and some nuclear chemistry class that sounds awful, but Baghra insisted I take.

My first two classes don’t seem to be too different from the classes I’m used to, barring the smaller class sizes and the much nicer buildings in which they’re taught.

Iced coffee in hand, feeling like I can conquer the world, I stride into my Nuclear Chemistry class on a windy Wednesday evening.

I take my seat, center, two rows back, crack my fresh notebook, and wait eagerly for class to being. The professor is an old man with the shiniest bald head I’ve ever seen.

I’m highlighting the second line of the syllabus, when the door swings open with a loud squeak.

All of the heads in the room snap to face the door, to gawk at the late-comer, but the professor continues, undeterred. 

In strides Aleksander Morozova, leather bag slung loosely across one shoulder, hair looking more disheveled than usual, dark circles ever present under his eyes, standing in vibrant contrast to his pale skin. It is June, but clearly he hasn’t been spending anytime outside. His beat up boots graze the floor as he struts past me. 

His eyes flit to mine momentarily before looking away just as quick, like he doesn’t know me at all.

He takes a seat in the back row and leaves five minutes before class ends.

I’m both relieved and unnerved by his lack of acknowledgement. We’ve fucked in a utility closet, and he can’t even spare me a nod. 

I didn’t even tell him I was transferring. I wonder if Baghra told him.

It continues like this for two weeks. Aleksander strides in late, rushes out the door, and never, ever makes eye contact with me. 

Every time, it stings a little more.

Until one day, three weeks after the start of term, Aleksander doesn’t show up to class at all. His chair in the back of the room remains empty, and my head swims with thoughts of him for the entirety of class. 

Sick? Maybe. He certainly works hard enough and never sleeps. His immune system is probably shot to hell. Vacation? He and Baghra don’t really seem like the family vacation type, and he doesn’t seem to have many close friends, so that seems unlikely. Maybe he got lazy? Also unlikely. Though, often late, this is the first class Aleksander has missed entirely. I caught a glimpse of his notebook once on his way out of the room. It was filled from margin to margin with detailed notes in his spidery slanting script. Aleksander may act cool, but he cares.

The class passes by slowly, and by the time it is finished, the purple light of evening is already pushing through the windows.

I walk the cobblestoned streets, mind still buzzing with unwelcome thoughts regarding Aleksander’s whereabouts, the heavy summer air sitting thick and hot around me.

The sun is sinking below The Charles River, lighting up the sky in a brilliant shade of pink when I approach the outside of my dorm. 

A tall figured dressed all in black is sitting on a bench, hunched over and breathing slowly.

His eyes lift at the sound of my approaching footsteps. 

He sighs and rolls his eyes, though not at me. At the universe, I think. A “why her, why now?” gesture.

His appearance stops me in my tracks. His left eye is an angry purple-red and in the process of swelling shut. The pale skin under his aquiline nose is stained with drying red blood. 

“Oh my god, what happened?” I exclaim, rushing towards him, feet carrying themselves over to him by their own volition. I can’t help myself. 

“Lantsov” he says simply, voice thick with pain. 

“You fought him?” I ask, horrified. 

“He was talking about you” He says, as if it explains everything. 

Sensing that I’m not going to get any more detail out of him right now, and noting the blood still trickling out of his left nostril, I decide on a new course of action.

“Come on,” I concede, extending my hand.

He takes it without another word and follows me up to my room.

I lead him into my dark dorm room, sunset casting long shadows across the floor, and walk to the sink to get the hot water running. In a building this old, it seems to take forever for the faucet to finally run warm.

Aleksander takes a look around the room, his dark eyes darting from my old futon to the stack of books balanced precariously next to the defunct fireplace. The door to my bedroom is shut, but I see his eyes linger on it.

I wonder what he sees in here. I wonder what it tells him about me. 

He runs a long finger slowly across the top of the mantle, absent-mindedly.

“Why do you hate him so much?” I ask after a moment, breaking the deafening silence. He doesn’t have ask who I am talking about.

“Because he’s an arrogant prick,” he replies darkly.

“And why does he hate you?” 

A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth “Because I’m an arrogant prick” he answers finally with a small laugh.

“Why did you fight?” I ask him

“Why didn’t you tell me you transferred?” he responds.

“Fair.” I sigh, “Are we at a stalemate then?” 

“No.” he says quietly, eyes trained on the fireplace. “But we’re both entitled to our secrets”

I try to think of a response, something to cut the tension in the room, but I find I cannot think of anything. I think he’s right. We’re good with secrets. Especially our own.

“I still want to be with you, you know” he says quietly after a moment, almost to himself more than me. Aleksander is wise enough to know that this is not a secret, certainly not one he has kept to himself, it is written all over his face, obvious in his slate grey eyes. 

I find I can’t look at him, so I train my eyes on the sink and focus on the ringing out the warm washcloth in my hand.

“I can’t imagine why” I respond after a moment.

“You’re everything I’ve been waiting for” he responds, still across the room, still not looking at me.

“And what is it that you’ve been waiting for?” I ask, heart hammering in my chest. The room feels impossibly heavy with emotion, while my brain reels. I want him to make overtures. I want him to declare his love for me. I want him to leave this room and never come back. I want to remove him from the place he’s buried himself under my skin. 

I find that when you do know what you want, there is no good answer.

He thinks for a minute. I think he’s considering his words carefully.

“A partner” he says.

I walk slowly over to the fireplace, washcloth seeping water into the sleeve of my cardigan.

I hand it to him cautiously, “for your eye” I say, and I’m reminded of a similar scene from not long ago, when I tended to Nikolai’s broken knuckles after he punched out Mal. I wonder who is caring for him tonight? That he didn’t come to my door only stings a little. 

If I’m going to continue to have relationships with these boys I might need more extensive first aid training.

Aleksander raises the cloth slowly to his rapidly swelling eye.

“Aren’t you supposed to ice a black eye?” he asks after a moment. I realize now that I never switched on the lights. The room is illuminated only by the silvery light of the moon streaming in from my open windows.

“Are you?” I laugh. “I’m an engineering major, I wouldn’t know”

“Didn’t get many black eyes in your day, Starkov?” he asks, tone teasing, “I could see you being quite the brawler”

“I was as skinny as a rail and spent most of my time on the playground sketching” I reply. “What about you?”

“I spoke perfect Latin, was a foot taller than all of my classmates, and I thought I was smarter than all of my teachers. My classmates didn’t exactly find me endearing” he laughs a sad laugh.

Aleksander isn’t the kind of person I can picture having ever been a child. I imagine him springing into the world fully formed like Athena from Zeus’s head, except in this scenario Zeus is Baghra and Athena is wearing a particularly fetching pair of black skinny jeans.

“Were you?” I ask.

“Was I what?’ 

“Smarter than all of your teachers?”

“Perhaps not all, but almost certainly more than half” He answers with a small smile. 

He sits down next to me on the old futon, grey eyes examining my face in the low light.

“Please, I need you to tell me why you and Nikolai fought” I sigh, I hate to break the warm silence that has fallen over the room, but I have to know.

Aleksander closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, bringing his hands to his temples.

“I heard him talking about you” he finally answers.

“You said that already, is that it?”

“I heard him say your name and I just lost it. He…” he pauses for a moment, struggling to find the right words “He doesn’t get to have you, Alina. The idea of him having you…” He trails off, as if the thought it too much to bear.

“I’m not a thing to have, Aleksander” I reply darkly. 

“I know that” he answers. “But I don’t think Lantsov knows that. I didn’t expect pretty boy to have such a mean right hook” 

“Yeah, well he does” I say, the memory of Nikolai breaking Mal’s nose flooding my head.

Aleksander and I sit next to each other for a moment, the silver light of the moon illuminating his grey eyes. The June air seeping in from the open windows hangs heavy. 

His eyes dart from my lips to my eyes, and he leans forward slowly and presses his lips gently against mine. It is unlike the frenzied fire of our previous kisses. This one is deliberate. 

It feels like he’s begging me.

He pulls back, and gazes into my eyes once more.

“Why won’t you leave me alone?” I whisper.

 

“Because then I’d be alone, too.” He replies, and he stays until the pink light of morning streams through the windows and there is nothing else left to say.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay you guys, sorry for being complete trash! My summer got crazy and I had serious writer's block and this story fell by the wayside. But for those of you who have stuck around and checked on me, thank you and I love you. Please enjoy this fluff and smut as a token of my affection (alarkling fluff! i hate myself for attempting it!).
> 
> Final chapter should be up soon, it will be epilogue-ish if it follows the outline I'm working on right now.

When I wake the next morning, Aleksander is next to me, his pale, hollow chest rising and falling slowly, the two of us tangled together in my twin bed.

The serenity of the scene fills me with a sort of warmness not before felt in Aleksander’s stormy presence. 

I leave him sleeping, as I slip out of bed quietly, careful not to disturb him. I throw on a sweatshirt (UMass, I’m not up to my ears in Harvard memorabilia yet) and make my way down the street to the nearest Starbucks a few blocks away. 

I get to the counter and realize I have no idea how he takes his coffee, or if he drinks coffee at all. In the end I order him a large black coffee, if I’ve messed up his order I can always make a joke that I ordered it black like his soul. I get a black tea for myself, like my soul too, I suppose. 

He’s still sound asleep when I return. He looks younger when he’s asleep. His long dark eyelashes rest on the sharp planes of his cheekbones. The hard lines of his face are softened in sleep, he no longer looks as if he’s waging a battle within the confines of his mind, the deep crease usually between his heavy brows is nowhere to be found. His dark hair falls in a lock across his forehead. I brush it away and he stirs. 

He mutters a sleepy sort of sound that I think may be an attempt at my name. 

“What was that?” I laugh. 

“mmgmmhhalina” he mumbles once more, face half buried in a pillow. 

“Come on sleepy head, I brought coffee” 

“Coffee?” he sighs.

“Yes, I hope you like it black” 

“Like my soul” he replies, rolling over, eyes still closed, the purple capillaries of his eye lids vibrant against his pale skin. 

“My thoughts exactly” I reply, yanking the pillow out from under his head. 

He swats at me half-heartedly, before burying his head under the comforter. 

“What’d you do that for?” he calls out from under the blankets. 

“You need to wake up!” 

“I don’t need to do anything. I live here now. In this bed. It is my home” he mumbles, still buried, save for a shock of dark hair poking out from the blanket pile.

“No you don’t” 

“Devil woman.” 

“I’m a saint” 

“I live here” he mumbles once more.

“I forbid it” 

“No. You would love it.” 

“Only a little”

and with that he rises from the sea of covers like a monster from the deep and throws his arms around me, pulling me down into the fold with him, planting a kiss on the top of my head. 

“Morning Aleksander is different” I mutter into his chest.

“The brooding takes energy I can hardly muster before lunch time.”

“Yes of course” I laugh. 

“This isn’t morning Aleksander” he mutters into my hair “this is happy Aleksander” 

“You’re happy?” I smile a small smile he cannot see against his chest. 

“With you? Always.” 

“That’s not true” I laugh. 

“No it’s not” he laughs back “you’re a massive pain in the ass”

“So are you” I laugh 

“Then we’re perfect for each other" 

and we lay in bed until his coffee is ice cold and long forgotten. 

\-- 

The haze of happiness is different for the both of us. We spend the next few days holed up in my dorm or his, falling into twin beds, and uncomfortable futons, and ordering Chinese food too late at night. We see no one but each other for almost three days, before the worried texts from Genya begin. She makes Aleksander speak to her on the phone before she’s appropriately convinced he hasn’t murdered me. I hear her call him “Aleks” and he doesn’t correct her. He catches my smile at the exchange and smiles back. It’s genuine and so beautiful it’s blinding. 

Eventually classes draw us out back into the world, and we go, still attached at the hand, and ignoring the ever-present questions in each of our minds. 

The jealous, questioning raised brows I get from the other girls in our shared Nuclear Chemistry class when I walk in on his arm make me fiercely proud and possessive. It scares me just a bit. If Aleksander notices he doesn’t let on. 

He spends the entirety of class (in which we are sitting in his usual back corner, he won that silent argument) trailing his fingers lazily over my thigh. My notes are a mess. I make him let me copy his after class. They’re immaculate and I’m filled with equal parts admiration and annoyance. 

At night we return to my room, to bask in the fog of each other and order shit food. 

I do not ask about the darkness behind his eyes. He does not ask about the circles under mine.

\-- 

It is a week before I see Nikolai again. 

I’m walking to a coffee shop before math; Aleksander is studying in the library. We’ve been together so much recently; not having his hand wrapped around mine feels like missing a limb. 

Nikolai is walking down the street wearing a light blue sweater and khaki shorts. He’d look ridiculous if he didn’t look so cute. 

He almost doesn’t notice me at first, but when he does, he eyes go as wide as quarters, and he jogs across the street in those stupid boat shoes he always wears. 

“Alina!” he gasps as he reaches me. Close up I can see the yellowing bruise around his eye, Aleksander must have landed at least one good punch before Nikolai did a number on him. His bruises are almost gone too.

“What do you want” I respond icily.

“Can we talk?” he replies, still out of breath. 

“About what?” I respond, stone cold. I almost feel bad. Almost. 

“Do you want me to beg?” he asks with a seductive raise of his eyebrow. 

I stare back at him stone faced. 

He pulls at the hem of his sweater and switches his weight back and forth from foot to foot. 

“Please” he says quietly “Just let me explain.” 

“Fine.” I reply “I’ll let you buy me a cup of coffee. The fancy shit.” 

“Alina, my darling, I’ll buy you the fanciest shit.” 

I shoot him a glare. 

“Come on” he laughs, obviously relieved that I’m no longer wearing a look on my face that says murder.

He leads me to a French café, one I haven’t been to before. I notice he pointedly avoids the side street shop where our previous altercation took place. 

He sits down after ordering us some lattes flavored with five-dollar syrup. He even brings me scone for good measure. I pick at it to avoid looking him in the eye. 

“I’m sorry” he sighs, as if he can contain the words within him no longer. Still, I get the impression Nikolai is not a person used to saying sorry. 

I continue to stare at the scone without responding. It hurts to look at him in a sharp place deep in my gut. 

“I hope you know I didn’t mean what I said.”

“What did you mean?”

“Just…that I…that we…” he struggles for words a moment longer, and this too is out of character. He’s scared, I realize. Scared of me? 

“That’s the problem, Nikolai” I whisper, “I think you meant exactly what you said”

“No” he says forcefully, looking beseechingly at me. “I only meant that we would be good together. I still think that” 

“I can’t imagine why” I laugh darkly.

“You’re fierce, Alina. Do you know what I wouldn’t give to have someone like you at my side?” 

“Someone like me or me?” 

“You just can’t make this easy can you?” he laughs, frustrated.

“That’s impossible” I reply 

“When people say impossible they usually mean improbable” he quips back, a smile playing on his stupid cute mouth. 

I can’t believe how quickly my anger is abetting; his hazel eyes melt through my icy façade like a blow torch all charm and stupidly endearing sincerity. 

“What you said was really shitty.” I say.

“I know, god I know. I’m sorry. If you give me a chance, I promise you won’t regret it” 

“I barely know who I am, Nikolai. I feel as if I’m only just now beginning to figure it out. And being your girlfriend? I get the impression that’s a full time job. It’s an identity. It’s a commitment bigger than one I’m able to make right now.” 

He looks wounded. 

“I wouldn’t ask that of you” he says quietly. 

“But your position would” 

“Stupid shit dad, and his stupid shit job” he laughs in my favorite Nikolai way, the laugh he only laughs when he’s making fun of himself. 

“At least you have a dad.” I try to say it lightly, but I fail. He looks at me with pity. 

“Don’t look at me like that!” I say

“Like what?” he asks, offended. 

“Like you’re thinking about sponsoring me, like those commercials for the orphans in Africa”

“You’d turn down my sponsorship?” He laughs, raising his eyebrows. 

“Shut up, stop changing the subject. I’m breaking your heart here.” 

“And oh what an excellent job you’re doing, my darling” he says. Real sadness seeps through the bravado and it sends a fissure down the center of my heart. Would being Nikolai’s be all that bad? No. But it would mean belonging to someone else. To being public property. 

It would mean giving up Aleksander, and that’s not something I’m willing to do. 

It hurts to give up Nikolai like this. But giving up Aleksander? It’s unthinkable. Our souls are knitted together in a dark kind of way I’m still trying to understand. 

“I’m sorry.” I say simply. 

“You have nothing to apologize for. I’m the jerk here remember? Friends?”

“I’d really, really like that.” 

And then we chat like real friends, the knotting in my stomach stopping long enough for me to inhale the cranberry scone. At one point Nikolai tells me I should consider going blonde and I throw a packet of sugar at him. I miss, but just barely.

We stand up from the table, dropping our empty cups on the counter. Nikolai holds the door for me and we step out on the quiet street.

“I’ll see you around” I say. I’ve always been bad at goodbyes. I avoid them whenever possible. A product of foster-care, I think. 

“That you will, Alina” 

He walks a few paces, boat shoes slapping against the cement, when he stops and turns around, calling over his shoulder. 

“If Morozova hurts you, let him know I’ll kill him. Not just break his nose like last time.” 

“Stop punching boys who are mean to me!” I shout back. 

“Never!” he yells, laughing as he walks away.

And I’m exceeding glad I ran into Nikolai, despite the tiny aching part of my heart I suspect will always belong to him in some small way. 

But more, I’m exceedingly glad that he is my friend. 

I walk to math, veins buzzing with coffee and Nikolai and the knowledge that Aleksander is waiting at home for me.

\-- 

I return home as the sun is setting. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the way the sun glints off the glassy surface of the Charles River, sending rays of light pouring over the ancient campus. 

Aleksander is sprawled on my futon when I step in the door, creating some kind of graph that’s causing him to swear profusely at his laptop. 

“Honey, I’m home” I say sarcastically, breaking him out of his statistical modeling induced stupor. 

“You know my preferred pet names are baby, sugar, and pumpkin” he says flatly, eyes not leaving his screen. 

I walk over to kiss the top of his messy black head and he swats my hand away. 

“Stop that” 

“Stop what?” 

“Acting like a girlfriend.” 

“Am I not your girlfriend?” I ask, genuinely wounded.

“God no. You’re so much more than that. Girlfriend. What an unbelievably stupid word for what you are to me.”

Still standing above him, I snatch his laptop and set it quietly on the ground before sliding on to the futon and tucking myself into his side. 

He throws his long limbs over me and I trace the eclipse tattoo on the soft underside of his forearm with the tip of my finger.

“I ran into Nikolai” I say quietly against his chest. “His bruises appear to be healing.” 

Without a word, he rises slowly from the futon and switches off the lamp in the corner, leaving the room immersed in darkness. 

“What are you going to do to me in the dark?” I ask quietly. 

“Oh, just wait for the things I plan to show you” 

And then he’s lifting me up and kissing me so hard it bruises my lips. His fingers grasp desperately at my hips before reaching up to pull my shirt over my head. 

“What’s gotten into you?” I ask him. 

“You.” He whispers slowly against my mouth. 

He picks me up in a fluid motion and I’m reminded that beneath his sinewy form, Aleksander is strong. Seriously strong. 

I wrap my legs around his waist and pull my hands through his thick hair. 

He kicks the door to my bedroom open and throws me roughly on the bed, making quick work of the rest of my clothing. 

I rip his off gracelessly, relishing the way the smooth planes of his body move under my hands. 

He slips two fingers inside of me and I grind down on him, desperate for it. He knows it and I feel him chuckle against my ear before he bites it. 

“More” 

“No” he laughs, enjoying watching me writhe under him. 

“I want you” I sigh 

“Oh, I know” he replies coldly. 

He mouths at my nipples for a moment, getting off on how I squirm and rise up to meet his touch. He trails his hot mouth along the length of my collarbone, sighing as he bites and sucks a collar around me. 

He pins me down on the mattress with one long arm against my chest, and then he’s pushing inside so fully I can’t breathe. 

And I sigh into him, the warm wetness of it all, of us both, filling me. He pushes into me in a fluid motion, and there is little in me that feels like it’s not him. He moves inside me slowly, pausing to suck on my swollen bottom lip or lick at my pulse, beating hard at the base of my neck. 

There is nothing inside me that doesn’t understand this was a foregone conclusion, Aleksander and I. 

Twin bruises and demons and whirring minds.

The kind of love that seeps through you like a poison. The kind of love that buries itself under your skin. The kind of love that aches, and leaves nothing but a trail of fire and ruin in its wake. 

And it is what I choose. 

He hovers over me, glorious torso slick with sweat, eyes heavy lidded and looking at me like I’m something precious.

I lift my head slightly and press a kiss to his collarbone. He closes his eyes and sighs at the touch of my lips. 

“Say it” I demand 

He doesn’t have to ask what I mean. 

“You first” he smirks, still moving inside of me, steadying his ragged breathing enough to speak. 

I wrap my legs around him, ankles crossing behind his back, pulling him deeper into me. 

“No” I growl, teeth grazing his ear lobe. 

He starts to pump into me harder and faster, sucking in desperate wanting breaths. Sometimes they sound like my name. 

I arch my back and take him into me, again and again. Slick with the sensation of it all, desperate to take all of him inside of me. He pumps his cock into me up to the hilt and it knocks the wind out of me. 

He slaps my face, hard, just once, and I scream in pleasure and pain. “More” my brain cries. Always more. 

“Say my name” he sighs, black hair plastered to his forehead, pupils blown out, totally and completely undone. 

“No” I sigh 

He slaps my face again. 

“Aleksander” I cry out

and he comes inside of me, throbbing and hot, and it throws me over the edge with him. We come together, nails raking down him back, tears in my eyes with the force of it. 

He pulls out of me and rolls over, burying his perfect head in the crook of my neck, both of us panting and slick with sweat. 

He collapses on top of me, and the feeling of our hearts beating together, just under the skin is enough to make mine stutter. He raises a perfect hand to my forehead and brushes a sweat-soaked lock of hair behind my ear. 

His eyes meet mine, and I know exactly what he’s thinking. I know, because it is the same thought pulsing through my head loud enough it is almost deafening. 

“Well?” I whisper to him “are you going to say it?” 

“I love you” he gasps desperately.

 

“I love you too.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This epilogue has been so difficult for me. After about a million different versions, this felt like the right way to end it.
> 
> I'm weirdly emotional about finishing my first fic project. Thank you for reading, commenting, liking. I've said it before, this fic only exists because of the support I've gotten from all of you. That people seem to like my writing is still a little mind blowing. 
> 
> You are the best and I love you a whole lot.

Aleksander and I graduate from Harvard on a sunny Saturday afternoon in May. Genya is in the audience claiming she’ll cheer for us in equal measure, but really, she only has eyes for David and the shiny diamond ring he placed on her finger the week before. 

Aleksander and I are to be the maid of honor and best man. Aleksander accepted the role with only a minor grimace. 

Nikolai kisses me on the cheek with a sweet “congratulations” after the ceremony, and I’m proud of Aleksander for only balling his hand up into an angry fist at his side while witnessing our interaction. 

We move into an apartment all our own three days later. 

We stay in Cambridge to pursue PhDs, and though Baghra tries her hardest, we both manage to dodge her as our thesis advisor. 

\-- 

Our apartment is my first real home. I was beginning to feel as if I would never belong anywhere. How wrong I was. I belong with him. 

He strips me down to my purest form. I need no shelter but his. 

Aleksander is controlling and I am flighty and we both are bad at being loved, but still, we manage. 

And when we fight and he asks if I’d be happier with Mal or Nikolai at my side I say no. 

“Why not?” he asks “then you’d be the strong one.” 

“No. Because you’re a better man than they are.” 

“You made me a better man.” 

“You made me a monster” I sigh with a wicked twist of my lips against his. 

Once I have him gasping for more I shove him away roughly.

“And you’re wrong” 

“Wrong about what?” he asks, panting and confused. 

“I’m still the strong one.” And then I turn on my heel and walk away, leaving him, shirt half unbuttoned, hair mussed, standing alone in the living room.

\-- 

He craves power in a way that scares me. 

I tether him back down to earth. He forces me to dream so much bigger. 

Still, we are not easy people to love. Still we try. Still we love each other fiercely. 

Aleksander doesn’t know how to do anything any way but fiercely, I find.

\-- 

We’ve been living together for five years on the day they award us our doctorates. Again, Genya is in the audience, her baby in her lap, babbling and reaching her chubby fingers out toward her godparents as we walk across the stage. 

That night, in bed long after the ceremony, he slips a simple band on my finger and whispers “only if you want to” 

I want to. 

\-- 

We marry at the courthouse. I wear a dress borrowed from Genya just like the night we met. It feels something like coming full circle.

 

 

He vows we will change the world together.


End file.
